


I Ka 'Ôlelo No Ke Ola (In Speech Is Life)

by SBG



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Angst and Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-03
Updated: 2012-09-03
Packaged: 2017-11-13 11:42:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 30,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/503157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SBG/pseuds/SBG
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Danny has unrequited lust for Steve, and he is dealing with it okay. Really, he is. When everyone around him suddenly starts oversharing, it confuses and consternates him. Then it causes him to do something he doesn't know how to deal with, threatening his job and his friendship with Steve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from the phrase _I ka 'ôlelo no ke ola, i ka 'ôlelo no ka make_ , which translates to "In speech is life, in speech is death". Basically, watch what you say, because what goes around comes around. Regarding the "mildly dubious consent" tag - nothing actually happens, but it was heading that way and I wanted to make sure that was known somehow. I don't _think_ it's triggering. 
> 
> Many thanks to my beta readers, LdyAnne, annieke and ellie_pierson, without whom this story may have never been finished.

H50H50H50

The shop appeared empty, though the posted sign and the unlocked door indicated it was open for business. Not only were there no customers browsing in the front, whoever was minding the counter had apparently ducked into the back room and hadn’t heard him enter. Since he was alone, Detective Danny Williams scowled at his surroundings to get it out of his system. Everyone knew how he felt about stuff like this already, but he’d learned his lesson. He’d hold his tongue to the best of his ability, refrain from saying anything disrespectful, which was going to be difficult considering all of the weird stuff in this occult or magic or odd Hawai’ian religious thingamabob shop. He didn’t know what to call it, but suspected even his mental indecision was borderline disrespectful. For a place that had many placards proclaiming peace, Danny didn’t feel particularly peaceful standing in it. His pique was up.

He really thought his fine, upstanding teammates would have had the collective sense to keep him away from this kind of interview. Danny knew, of course, that his partner had divided the labor with the deliberate intent to torture him, and it was his own fault for offering to stay at HQ to do computer analysis since Lori had been called away on Homeland Security business on the mainland (lucky woman). He had to work on his soft sell; he liked computer work about as much as he believed in some greater force of good and evil governing people’s actions. Ultimately, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. He picked up a CD with a picture of a lush Hawai’ian rainforest on its cover. 

“Psychic healing and repair through the ancient art of chanting, my ass,” he mumbled at the professed benefits of the CD. “I don’t know why people buy into this mumbo jumbo.”

The bell above the door, very old school, dinged again as Steve McGarrett, Lieutenant Commander of all things Navy and SEAL-like, joined him. For a moment, backlit by the bright sunshine from outside, Steve looked slightly more than human, like he existed on some higher plane. The light glinted off the patches of grey at the side of his head, caught the length of his eyelashes and Danny cursed under his breath about both, because there was no way on earth that was fair. It was hardly fair to anyone on the planet, but specifically to him. And that was not accounting for the tattoos, the broad shoulders, the every last damn thing. Steve didn’t need to drag him to the hokiest place on the island to torture him. He just had to exist in Danny’s relatively small sphere of influence, and damned if Steve didn’t delight on squeezing right on in every chance he got.

Danny was almost one hundred percent certain Steve had no idea whatsoever that he swung that way, sometimes, that attraction to him wasn’t confined to one gender. By all appearances, he was straight as a fucking proverbial arrow. It was easier that way most of the time. He wasn’t proud of taking the path of least resistance, for the record. If asked, he’d tell. Until then, he was dating Gabby, casually. He enjoyed Gabby, casually. She was a wonderful, beautiful person. 

She was also not Steve, which was no fault of hers but there it was anyway. He was going to have to do something about that before his assholery, unintentional though it was, got out of hand. It wasn’t right for him to keep seeing her, casually, especially considering he’d introduced her to Grace. That was a particular dick move, in respect to his utter unfairness to Gabby for not being Steve.

The sum inequity of _his_ life, of course, was that no one else was or could ever be Steve, and Danny knew it made him slightly sick in the head to harbor unrequited feelings for a guy who actually _was_ as straight as the proverbial arrow everyone thought he himself was. For the life of him and despite skill in that area, he couldn’t get a read on Steve beyond that. He should be able to tell if there was any hope at all, damn it, and he couldn’t. It was depressing, honestly. His own misery was blocking his receptors or something.

“They got anything?” Danny asked. 

Chin and Kono had taken a similar shop over in Waikiki, which was why the computer angle had been a moot play. Much as Danny professed to hate the beach, he’d have rather pulled that one than this dusty downtown dump. He felt a sneeze at the back of his nose, and his throat tickled. He had constant throat issues from the sand and all the plant life and who knew what else, it wasn’t even funny. Come to think of it, Steve had probably thought he was doing Danny a favor, steering them away from the beach. Too bad he steered them right into a dustbin instead. He looked up and caught Steve staring at him in amusement, obviously waiting for him to sneeze. Danny tilted his chin, waggled his hand to show it wasn’t happening, for Steve to carry on.

“Nope, dead end. They’re on their way to the last locale. He’s got to be using one of these places,” Steve said. He looked at the CD in Danny’s hand, leaned in close to peer at it. “Hey, it’s about time you acknowledged the psychic damage you’re carrying around. Good for you, Danny. It’s the first step in the healing process.”

“Ha ha.” Danny slammed the CD back into its spot, perhaps a hair too defensively, and retreated a step, which was also a defensive move. “You’re not as funny as you think you are, except for maybe those ridiculous faces you pull all the time. Those are legitimately humorous. I’ll give you that only since you don’t intend them to be.”

Steve pulled that one face that involved hooded eyes and a lopsided smile, the one Danny did not find hot at all. Uh uh, not him and it would be much easier to set aside inconvenient physical reactions if Steve doing even the most mundane of things wasn’t somehow so, so hot. Fuck his life. He needed to focus on the case. 

“Oh,” the clerk said, appearing as if from nowhere. “ _Howzit?_ ”

Danny turned, took in the slight man standing directly in front of the counter. He was short as well as slender, an inch or two taller than Danny himself, and native. Age was difficult to determine. The guy looked both old and young, somehow.

“I’m sorry, I got caught up in reorganizing the stock room. Didn’t hear you come in. Can I help you find something today?”

Then again, maybe Danny’s life wasn’t all bad. He had to endure what was mostly unintentional torture ala his partner, but at least he wasn’t reorganizing stock rooms for bullshit mystical healing shops. There was always that. 

“My friend here,” Steve said as he thumbed toward Danny, “is in need of spiritual guidance.”

“No, I’m not,” Danny said quickly, lifting his hands as if he could ward off the very idea. “I’m really not. He’s joking. He does that. He thinks he was a comedian in a past life or whatever, because everyone knows he isn’t amusing in this one.”

“Hmm,” the guy said, as if confused, except he didn’t look confused so much as intrigued.

“Lieutenant Commander Steve McGarrett. My partner, Detective Danny Williams. Five-0.” Steve pointed to their badges with a smile, suddenly all about the people skills. It was a dirty trick, leading off with a jab like that. “We have a few basic questions, if you wouldn’t mind answering them. Do you own this shop?”

“Yes, owner and sole employee,” the guy said, with a smile and a quick flick of his eyes around the small storefront. “Kai Haalilio. Am I in trouble?”

“Not at all, sir.” Danny smiled as if every single thing about this place didn’t make him itch. He pulled the picture, grainy and not terribly useful, out and slid it across the counter. “We’re actually looking for someone who might have reason to frequent an establishment such as yours. You see, he fancies himself a bit of a … what was that word again?”

“ _Kahuna hana aloha,_ ” Steve said, helpfully and with perfect diction and cadence. 

“That’s it. I get the _kahuna_ because of all those old surfer movies, but after that it’s all Greek to me,” Danny said, shrugging. 

Halfway through he knew he was tiptoeing toward the bad attitude thing, but it was partially Steve’s fault, damn it, for leading off with the whole spiritual guidance crack. It set him off on a defensive route, but he thought he managed to swing it around to harmless, classic blundering mainlander. Yeah, okay. He could acknowledge holding his tongue was an area in which he needed some improvement; that wasn’t exactly breaking news. 

Haalilio stared at Danny for a few measured beats, dark eyes thoughtful and, truthfully, a tad intimidating. That was saying something, because Danny had learned at a very young age how to handle people larger than himself – and larger didn’t always mean physically. Haalilio had an air about him that was unsettling. Danny maintained eye contact, though. For all he didn’t believe in all this ancient peace and love and harmony with the spirits, their suspect did, at least as a means to an end. Haalilio did without an ulterior motive. That was all that mattered, and if part of his motivation to toe that line was avoiding another giant rock through the car’s window like the eccentric man at the _heiau_ , then so be it. 

“Why would Five-0 be looking for someone with those credentials?” Haalilio said at last. He didn’t glance at the picture. “Surely, love isn’t against the law.”

“No, no it is not,” Danny said. He shifted to his right foot, edged away from Steve, as it seemed like his partner was crowding him all of a sudden. “In fact, I wholly support and advocate love. It, as they say, keeps the world going around. The problem is our resident proclaimed love doctor isn’t official and has been bilking lonely people out of their hard earned money.”

“ _Auwe_.”

Basic fraud alone wasn’t enough for Five-0’s involvement, and there was no way to know how many people had been duped and been too embarrassed to come forward, or how many had been tourists and had gone home poorer than they expected. But this genius had pulled the con on one of the governor’s friends, who happened to be a very wealthy, somewhat powerful person in the mainland political arena in her own right. She was also very gullible. 

Frankly, Danny wasn’t sure that was enough to qualify task force involvement. Governor Denning wanted them to jump, so they jumped whether or not they wanted to. That was a severe drawback to working on Five-0, as far as he was concerned. He was also a tad unsympathetic to someone who managed to lose what amounted to twice his own annual salary inside of a week and while on an expensive vacation slash political trip, but sometimes his was not to wonder why. His was but to do and hopefully not die in the process. He slid his eyes to Steve, the man voted most likely to get Danny killed. The question was, would it be guns, explosives or Steve’s ass in those cargo pants that did him in?

“Our way is _la’a_. Unless he’s _‘anâ ‘anâ_ , I cannot believe he’s one of us,” Omanaka said, horrified. 

“You’re _kahuna_?” Steve asked.

“ _Kupua a'o._ ” Haalilio bowed his head. “I help people realize truths about themselves, find peace.”

“Huh,” Danny said. It seemed _kahuna_ was contagious or something. Steve’s elbow nudged into Danny’s shoulder, a very unsubtle reminder to remain respectful. “That’s nice.”

“No one has died, so not _‘anâ ‘anâ_. We agree that it’s doubtful he’s anything but a con artist,” Steve said.

“No.” Haalilio shook his head slowly. “And even if he was _kahuna_ , he’s broken the trust. His actions are an affront to what we stand for. What we do is organic. If it was meant to happen, it will happen. We don’t possess magic, as such, just influence.”

“His con is incredibly well implemented. He’s probably been at this for years.” Steve tapped the photo. “We don’t have a real name for him yet, but we think he’s got to be getting supplies locally to make the act look legitimate. If you could just see if you recognize him, if you have any records of his purchases. An address on file. Anything would be a great help to us, to help stop him from disrespecting you and the others who do so much good.”

He thought Steve was laying it on thick and playing the _kama ‘aina_ _brah_ code or whatever too hard, but Haalilio finally looked at the photo.

Danny was good at reading people. He’d been good at it long before he’d joined the force – his mother liked to jokingly tell him he’d come out of her womb already a cop, which was an image he could do without, actually, though he appreciated the sentiment. He wasn’t a believer in destiny so much, yet contradictorily did feel like he’d been built for a cop’s life. On the job training had honed his innate ability to recognize bullshit into a pretty decent skill. His bullshit meter didn’t move at all with Haalilio. Danny knew before the shopkeeper spoke that he didn’t know their dirtbag. 

“I’m sorry,” Haalilio said. “I’ve never seen him before.”

That didn’t surprise Danny, in the sense that he’d already ascertained Haalilio’s answer and because it would have been too easy. They had to hope Chin and Kono would have better luck at the last shop, or the search would be broadened to other islands. Steve seemed sure the whole operation was limited to O’ahu. So far, what few paper trails they had were here.

“It’s okay.” Danny pulled out his wallet, withdrew a business card. “Do us a favor, if he’s stupid enough to surface here, give us a call?”

“Kay den.” Haalilio nodded slowly again. His fingers toyed with the edge of the card, and studied him and Steve with dark, unreadable eyes. 

Danny in particular held his interest, or at least that was the way it seemed to him. He was a tad paranoid, so he couldn’t be sure. He shot Steve a look, but his partner had already headed for the door. 

“You’re not a believer,” Haalilio said. 

“No offense, but no, sir.” See? Old dogs could learn new tricks. That was polite as hell. “It’s not my thing.”

“Your partner isn’t either, but I think he’s more accepting, having grown up here.”

“Yeah, he’s a real … never mind. Let’s just say I get that a lot on this topic,” Danny said, with a frown and a head tilt. He took a step back, wanted the conversation over. “I don’t think I have to believe to want justice for the victims.”

“No, of course not. And I don’t judge, Detective,” Haalilio said. He reached out and clasped Danny by the elbow. “One thing before you go. I sense … your _‘uhane_ , your soul, is unsettled.”

Danny cleared his throat, shook his head. He really didn’t want to talk about his soul and its issues. Not with a purveyor of all things Danny didn’t believe in. Not with anyone, really. Haalilio’s hand was warm through the rolled up layers of his sleeves. Danny found the touch comforting but also strange. 

“My soul’s fine. It’s better than fine, in fact, but thank you for your concern.”

“ _Pololei._ ”

Haalilio smiled at him and nodded once, eyes deep and intense as he stared a hole right through Danny. He let go of Danny’s arm just as Danny was about to wrench free, and for a moment the room spun. Danny had to put out a hand and leaned on the nearest display table to keep from falling. When the world righted, Haalilio had scooted behind the counter. Danny frowned and stood there for a moment, until Steve poked his head through the door.

“You coming, Danno, or do you really need a spiritual helping hand?”

“Yeah. Sure. Okay, I’m coming,” Danny said.

As he reached the door, Haalilio called out, “All things will be made clear, Detective Williams, if you only seek to learn the truth.”

“Seeking to learn the truth is my job.”

“Then our paths are not dissimilar; however, that’s not what I meant.”

Because that was not weird at all, Danny thought as he gave Haalilio the stink eye, and then stepped into the bright sunshine to find his partner leaning all casual and ridiculous on the hood of the Camaro, arms folded across his chest, muscles bulging.

H50H50H50

Their pseudo love doctor and bona fide con artist seemed totally unperturbed to be sitting in the middle of the blue-lit interrogation room.

The lighting wasn’t for mood, though Danny had to admit it did cast some very interesting shadows on his partner’s face, which often put _him_ in a mood not entirely appropriate for the situation. Somehow the lighting made the already handsome Steve McGarrett even more so. Intimidating too, of course, but mostly hot to the point of distraction. No, bringing out the fine points of Steve’s cheekbones was not the intent of the room’s lighting and design. It was just a happy, if somewhat unfortunate for him, side effect, Danny thought. The dimness of the room was supposed to create an element of unease in the usually guilty lowlifes cuffed in the chair. Ninety-nine percent of the time, the atmosphere worked like a charm, especially when coupled with some of his own excellent questioning techniques and the lack of any basic niceties like windows or climate control.

Truthfully, this guy’s easy calm made Danny’s blood boil a little, which wasn’t an uncommon reaction for him. He actually knew he was a bit of a hothead. He did make attempts to not let his irritation show, though they usually failed, and today Danny caught Steve sending him looks now and again which told him that he was failing harder than usual. That was all right. Steve could get in his head like no one’s business pretty much any day of the week, even if he didn’t realize it, but as long as the bad guys couldn’t when it counted most, it didn’t matter. He wished he could pinpoint what it was about Junior “Pu'uwai” Kealoha’s cool, blank expression that had him bothered.

Something about the whole takedown bothered him, if he were going to be honest, ate away at the corners of his brain like a termite slowly destroying the foundation of what had been a perfectly sound home. It wasn’t just that it had involved an extensive amount of running and sweating, which Danny never enjoyed the way Steve seemed to. It wasn’t even that it had taken them a stupid amount of time tracking the asshole down. No, it was that Kealoha had been animated as any criminal trying to outrun the law, until the law caught him. Then he’d turned into this robot, as if he had an on/off switch. It seemed pretty obvious to Danny that they weren’t going to get a damn thing out of him anytime soon. They didn’t need it, per se, but there was satisfaction in obtaining a confession to make the case airtight. Especially, he had to admit, when the dirtbag was particularly dirty.

Danny had a massive headache brewing about this stupid fraud case and, since he was already about to publicly blow his gasket, saw no reason to hide that either. He’d hated it from minute one, hated that the task force was called in to assuage the wounded pride of one of the governor’s friends. It felt like an exploitation of executive power, and he had to focus on the little people who’d been cleaned out and not the big name catalyst that had pulled them in. He pinched the bridge of his nose, closed his eyes for a brief moment. A touch to his elbow had him straighten and look at McGarrett before they edged closer to the door, out of Kealoha’s earshot for a sidebar. 

“He’s not going to give us anything,” Steve said quietly. 

“You thought that too, eh?” Danny said. He scrubbed a hand down his face. He hadn’t slept well last night, and the foot chase to catch this guy hadn’t helped. He was cranky and he was hungry and the very beginnings of an idea formed. “The case isn’t riding on a confession, but I want that smug bastard to spill his guts. I’m about five minutes from beating it out of him.”

“Such a temper on you, Danno. Besides, no, you’re not. I know you better than that.”

“Shut it. You know what I mean. A confession is always vindication.”

“Yeah. I doubt we’ll ever be able to pin down exactly how extensive his con was without direct information from him. Too many victims will never come forward. I’m actually kind of impressed that everything wasn’t at his house. And every little bit helps make a case cut and dried, yeah? I say we keep going for it. He’s only been in custody, what, four hours? He’s gotta crack eventually.”

“I’d like to think so. How you want to play it? Leave him in here to stew for a good long while? Or we could tag team Chin and Kono in here, let them take a crack. I know Kono’s chomping at the bit to get at this guy,” Danny mumbled. “Who knew she’d be such a champion for the hopeless romantics out there?” 

Kono, of all of them, had been the only one outwardly outraged at Kealoha’s game. Not the fraud itself, but the manner in which he did it, preying on people looking for love at all costs. In many cases, Danny suspected that cost was incredibly high and not only financially. People who were willing to give up that much money for the hope of love were desperately lonely. He knew better than most that loneliness and stupidity often went hand in hand.

Before Kono had come out with guns blazing on this particular topic, Danny had, in fact, known their youngest team member was tenderhearted. He knew how to read many people, after all. Tough exteriors often revealed soft, squishy insides. He blinked up at Steve, the epitome of tough exteriors. For some reason, he couldn’t tell if Steve followed the rule or not. He tended to follow no rules, at least no rules that made any sense for regular people. 

“She’ll shred him into teeny, tiny pieces.”

“Probably,” Steve said with a toothy grin.

Something in Danny’s own squishy heart ached. The sheer number of insane things that made Steve look so joyful was astonishing. Danny couldn’t always appreciate the source of the glee, but damned if he didn’t look forward to those silly grins. Hardass Navy SEAL Steve had mellowed out into this giant goofball Steve most of the time, and Danny couldn’t help but grin himself. He had it bad, and he deep down knew he was a fool for letting it get to this point.

“You actually like to watch as much as you like to get right up in there, don’t you? Animal,” Danny said with an eyebrow waggle.

“Huh,” Steve said.

Steve’s left eye squinted, the muscles in his cheek ticked as his smile changed slightly. No doubt about it, Steve … twitched. That was the only word for it, twitched, and before Danny could parse exactly what that meant, his partner’s expression switched to a careful, unreadable mask. It was an odd enough reaction to make Danny want to push but, catching the dark shadows highlighting the planes and angles of Steve’s face reminded him where he was, what they were both doing. 

He glared over at Kealoha, who stared sullenly back. Danny had no idea how anyone had been duped by that asshole. Nothing about him screamed love. Of course, the closemouthed robot routine couldn’t have been the one he’d used on his victims.

“Okay, let’s stick with it for a few more minutes,” Danny said. He glanced at Kealoha to make it appear as if they were talking seriously about him. He pulled out his phone, jotted off a message as quickly as his goofy thumbs would allow. “Maybe Chin Ho can pull out whatever magic trick is up his sleeve to track down this guy’s little black book if we can give him enough time. We can break for lunch, find out what he and Kono know and maybe send ‘em in after.”

“What’s a few more minutes?” Steve shrugged and turned back to Kealoha.

They’d connected the guy to the lonely senator’s losses easily enough, which was more than enough to put him away. Apparently the dollar signs in his eyes had blinded him to the fact his own damned con was designed for small sums spread out over many victims. He hadn’t known how to handle a big score, the moron. Somewhere along the way, though, Danny had actually developed a vested interest in justice for the nameless victims. It couldn’t possibly have a thing to do with his own hopeless situation, which may or may not be romantic. Oh, hell. There was no point in lying to himself. It was. 

“Let’s start at the very beginning,” Steve said.

“A very good place to start,” Danny added.

Steve’s eyebrows shot up. Sue him, everyone knew _The Sound of Music_. Danny shrugged.

“It’s gonna be very tedious rehashing all of the stuff you should have already told us, but I’m game.” Danny took the lead in their Annoying Cop/Brooding Cop routine, though he often argued that he didn’t always have to be the Annoying Cop. The argument never seemed to stick. “This could go on for hours. What’s our record in here?”

“Thirty-six hours, I think,” Steve said.

“Yeah, thirty-six hours.” Danny snapped his fingers thoughtfully. It was complete bullshit, of course. No perp would sit there and take it for that long without lawyering up. “Yeah, I remember that. Brutal.”

“I know my rights, _pua’a haole_ ,” Kealoha said all of a sudden. “You can’t keep me here without food and water for that long.”

Perfect, really. It was like the guy had read his mind. 

“Listen to that, the first thing out of his mouth for hours and it’s both a demand and an insult. Not a good way to start off, buddy. And what is it with you people and _haole_ , anyway? I gotta tell you, it’s unoriginal,” Danny said to Kealoha. He started pacing, waving his arms about. “The funny thing about the word _haole_ is that if you hear it often enough, it stops sounding real. I suppose it’s the same for many words. Like bacon. I’d like some bacon on that mac and cheese, please. How about an extra side of bacon with the pancakes? Last week, Sally was out in the sun too long and got fried like bacon. Move over bacon, now there’s something meatier. See? Am I right or what? Bacon sounds funny now.”

On the other side of and slightly behind Kealoha, Steve’s nostrils flared as he obviously tried to maintain his blank expression. Danny winked at him. Oh, yeah. Some Hawaiian words were easier to pick up on and remember than others, and he didn’t mean _haole_. Pig was just another word that rolled off his shoulders after so many times hearing it, no matter the language.

“It does sound funny,” Steve said mildly. “It also sounds delicious, for the record.”

“You’re right, it does, and you know, actually, I’m feeling a little hungry. I could eat.” Danny patted his stomach and kept his attention on Steve rather than Kealoha. “Could you eat?”

“You know me. I’m practically a human garbage disposal.”

Danny had to clamp down on a tongue for a second on that one. He knew for a fact that of the two of them, Steve thought he was the garbage disposal. There was no way Steve would touch bacon unless it was a special occasion or something. Annoying, adorable, incredibly fit jerk. He waved a finger in the air, half at Steve and half at Kealoha.

“Since we can, in fact, leave this yahoo in here without food and water for a while longer without any legal or ethical issues – at least I have no ethical problem…”

“Me either,” Steve said, spreading a hand across his chest like he thought someone might be confused about who he was talking about.

“Then what say you and I grab a plate while Don Juan here ponders his transgressions?”

Steve nodded with more enthusiasm than was strictly necessary, but Danny appreciated the effort. It was essential when they were doing a thing that they go with the flow even if one of them was more informed on said thing than the other. Shit knew Danny had to practice that skill way more often in their partnership than Steve ever did. He enjoyed the hell out of their things, though it probably didn’t seem that way. The more he bitched about something, the less it actually bothered him. He thumbed to the door, lifted his eyebrows and they both headed for the exit in near perfect synchronization. They ignored Kealoha’s protests and closed the door behind them with a satisfying bang. 

“I thought we were going to stick with it a bit longer,” Steve said as they walked through the bowels of the Palace. His arm nudged Danny’s shoulder they moved so closely together. 

Danny took a tiny sidestep, for his own sanity. He grinned, though. “Eh, I actually am hungry. It’s hard work standing around watching that asshole stonewall us.”

“Seems counterintuitive to leave after he’s finally said something, though.”

“Not really. You’ll see.”

Chin and Kono had lunch already purchased, and Danny enjoyed Steve drawing his steps to a halt and the confused look on his face. Danny waved his phone. 

“What, did you think I was playing Angry Birds in there like you were?” Danny asked. 

“It was Tetris. It’s addicting.”

“Very old school of you.” Danny held out his hand. “Thanks, babe.”

“ _Nah, minahs_ ,” Kono said, with a dismissive wave of her hand after she passed the food to Danny.

“I take it Kealoha hasn’t talked yet,” Chin said. 

“Nope, but he will. I have a feeling. C’mon, and bring an extra bottle or two of water.”

“You’re devious.” Steve grinned at him, fully on board with the plan by now. He grabbed four bottles of water and trotted after Danny back toward Kealoha. “You claim I’m the one playing fast and loose with perps, but you’re scary, man.”

“Don’t forget it, McGarrett,” Danny said as he shoved the interrogation door open. He glanced at Kealoha. “We missed you, sweetheart. Couldn’t stay away for five minutes. You don’t mind if we eat while we wait for you to talk?”

They put on a good show. Never one to care much about table manners when he was with his male friends, Danny made sure to crank it up several notches. Oddly, Steve was the one who looked like he was going to have a fit while Kealoha remained stonefaced. As he and Steve ate and drank and made merry, though, and after half of Danny’s shrimp were gone he swore he caught the guy licking his lips and heard the rumbling of a hungry stomach. They weren’t the only ones who’d been running and jumping out there half the night, after all.

“Oh, I’m sorry. How rude of us.” Danny wiped his mouth with a napkin, bobbed his head at Steve, who merely shoved a garlic shrimp into his already full mouth. “Eating all this delicious food right in front of you. Did you want something?”

Kealoha glared at him for a second, but then his eyes locked on the bottled water sitting on the floor, just out of his reach where Steve had carefully placed it. 

“Water,” Kealoha mumbled.

“Pardon?”

“I want water.”

“That’s funny, because you know what I want? I want you to fricking tell us every last little thing we want to know. Why don’t you just go ahead and tell us?” Danny said calmly, then took a long, slow drink of water. 

It was then the damnedest thing happened.

For some reason, Kealoha started sweating at Danny’s words. Well, started sweating more profusely. It was strange, because what Danny had said wasn’t anything that hadn’t been insinuated before. This was, after all, an interrogation, but panic darkened Kealoha’s eyes and he started shaking so hard the chair rattled. He bit his lip and moaned. Danny would have called bullshit because Kealoha was a damned grifter, but it actually sort of looked like he was in serious medical distress. As much as the guy halfway deserved a stroke – karma and all – Danny didn’t want the jerkoff to die on his watch. Too much paperwork. He and Steve abandoned their plates to the dirty floor and converged on Kealoha at the same time. 

Before either Danny or Steve reached him, Kealoha’s mouth opened and, with a stunned expression on his face, he sang like a canary. Just like that.

H50H50H50

“You want me to go in with you?”

Danny turned, leather seat squeaking beneath his ass. He probably looked like a goof, sitting there staring at the entrance of the building but not budging an inch. Steve’s eyebrows were up, his eyes nothing but sincere and he shouldn’t even be there. He’d been driving when the call came in, of course. He didn’t want to remind Steve that this was Danny’s thing to deal with, no one else’s, just like he didn’t want to have anyone else witness this. It was bad enough he had to do it. 

“No, it’s okay. It shouldn’t take that long,” Danny said. “Wait here.”

“Nowhere else to be.” Steve shrugged, opened his mouth, hesitated for a fraction of a second before he said, “This is probably nothing, you know. Grace is a good kid.”

“I know that, she’s mine.”

Danny took a deep breath and got out. He was well practiced at expecting the worst outcome for any given situation. The way he looked at life was that if the worst was anticipated and it didn’t happen, the non-horrible ending would be that much more pleasant. It didn’t make total sense to the average person, he knew that, but it worked for him. He enjoyed the extra thrill of survival after thinking he was as dead as dead could possibly get, for example, and he challenged anyone to defy there was some sort of logic in there for other non-lethal aspects of his existence as well. The worst case scenarios he played in his head rarely lived up to what happened in real time, thank fuck, because he was talking end of times dire prognostication ever since he’d been roped in as Steve’s partner. Steve came perilously close to disaster on a daily basis as far as Danny was concerned.

The one thing in which he’d never actually entertained terrible, horrible, raze-the-building bad things was Grace, except his marriage, and well, hindsight made it pretty clear the reverse philosophy was pretty terrible. Expecting the best and getting the worst was gut wrenching. He didn’t want it to backfire with his daughter. It wasn’t that he hadn’t envisioned about four million horrible things that could happen _to_ Grace. He was a cop. Of course all the misery he’d seen bled into his fertile imagination when it came to his own child. As much as he tried to compartmentalize, some scenes were too graphic and too close to home. 

It was that he’d refused to entertain the thought of horrible things happening because of Grace. 

Grace was his sweet girl, and sure, deep down he knew she was getting older and slightly less sweet and it would only continue on that path until she got past the teen years. Jesus God, he was not physically capable of contemplating that. It was why he’d created in his mind this magic bubble around her. He also knew he tended to treat her as if she were younger than she actually was. He had issues with his offspring growing up and with so much of it happening when he was not with her. He was big enough to acknowledge he clung to a picture perfect rendition of her. She wasn’t perfect, but damned if he didn’t want every single paltry minute he had with her to leave her with only good memories. Discipline hadn’t been hard for him to stomach pre-divorce, but post-divorce it gave him hives. He scratched at his arm, and resented the hell out of Rachel for being away and therefore making him handle this.

Since he’d gone a full ten years without contemplating all of the ways his kid would turn into some horrible monster or spoiled brat, the floodgates opening produced an epic amount of messiness. As he stalked through the corridors of the Academy of the Sacred Hearts toward the dean’s office, Danny couldn’t decide which thing was at the top of the list. He imagined Gracie inciting a riot in the cafeteria, a giant room full of miniature militants demanding shave ice daily. He thought she could have kicked that Tommy kid in the ‘nads at long last (that one wasn’t so awful, he rather liked it). Maybe she had dirt on her teacher and her blackmail scheme just got blown wide open. He envisioned her with a tiny handlebar moustache, twirling it as she ruled mightily over the whole school, a despot mad with power.

Danny had to reconsider his parenting; warped as it was, he actually felt glimmers of pride at all of those fictional scenarios. He had some mental problems. He was a severely messed-up individual. He barreled through the closed school office’s door, and there sat his little miscreant in the waiting area. Her feet dangled, toes barely touching the ground. Grace sure didn’t look like she’d sprouted tails and a horn. Of course not, because this wasn’t going to be like one of those could-bes rattling around in his head. He checked in briefly with the woman behind the great counter, flashed his ID.

“Dad,” Grace said.

Dad was a relatively new thing. Danny hated it. 

“Grace,” he said as he turned to his daughter.

“Mr. Williams is here,” Danny heard the receptionist say as he sat next to Grace.

He put his hand on top of Grace’s head and ruffled her hair, messing up the perfect pigtails. Her scowl deepened rather than turned into a ray of sunshine smile he usually got out of her. Danny had to wonder if maybe he wasn’t so far off in expecting something bad, didn’t have the chance to ask her what was going on before a slender man with long dark hair pulled into a simple ponytail approached them.

“Mr. Williams, hello, Sam Iona,” he said, holding out his hand. 

Danny ducked a quick look at Grace as he rose, sighed when she didn’t meet his eyes. He shook Mr. Iona’s hand.

“I’m one of the school’s counselors. Follow me, please.”

“Sure. Ah, would you mind cluing me in what this is about?” Danny asked.

“Your wife didn’t tell you?”

“Ex, and no, she didn’t. She might have tried, but the connection wasn’t too great. I’m going into this blind, as it were.”

Rachel and Stan were on Maui, again. Working on their marriage before the baby was born. Danny wasn’t bitter, not about that, anyway, just that he was stuck playing the disciplinarian with his perfect daughter when he was so out of practice. He’d moved past the other thing and onto greener, if fantastical only, pastures. Like embracing the fact he lusted after his work partner who, as it turned out, had unintentionally been the catalyst for him pulling the idiot move of sleeping with his ex-wife. Not that he was blaming Steve. Nope, not. He’d come to some rather unhappy rediscoveries about himself these past few months. Namely, he was a coward. He could run toward gunshots instead of from, tackle the biggest motherlovin’ brutes and be Steve’s backup in some downright crazy situations, but when it came to the emotional stuff, deep down he was a coward and a stupid one at that.

“Oh, right, of course. I knew that, sorry,” Mr. Iona said as he ushered them into the small office. He had the decency to look embarrassed. Actually, he looked a bit disheveled in general. “Have a seat, both of you.”

Grace slid silently into one of the two chairs set at slight angles in front of the counselor’s desk. Danny took the other, but he didn’t relax into it. His imagination had been kicked into overdrive, but he was not imagining the tension in the room.

“Mr. Williams, Grace had a test in her mathematics class today. After the class let out and the teacher sorted through the tests, he found this,” Mr. Iona said. 

He slid a piece of paper across the table toward Danny and there it was. Grace’s name was at the top and the questions were standard. The answers were … not. The answers were some of the most hateful, how-did-his-baby-know-them horrendous words and phrases he’d never expected from any ten-year-old, let alone his sweet, sweet girl, and Danny was not easily shocked. Nor was he the King of Clean Language. He had to bite back expletives even though he now knew just how well Grace knew them and used them in some truly creative ways. Now Danny honestly wished his kid had been the mastermind behind an enormous, academy-wide blackmail scheme. These words … Grace didn’t hate like this.

“You can understand the concern,” Mr. Iona said.

“Yeah,” Danny said stupidly. “Uh.”

Mr. Iona looked at Danny sympathetically, though his eyes were distant. Danny struggled to maintain his composure. He gaped at the counselor for a few moments, then turned his attention to Grace, who apparently found that her left kneecap was about the most fascinating thing she’d ever seen in her short life. He knew there were going to be serious ramifications to this, but what he wanted right now was to understand. That came first, then punishment. Grace’d be lucky if she didn’t get suspended. Did fourth graders get suspended? His brain hurt. His heart hurt, because some of the slurs on that page in his own daughter’s handwriting cut very close to home.

“This isn’t like you. What on earth is going on in that head of yours?” Danny asked softly. “Huh?”

Grace finally looked at Danny. The scowl was gone but what was in its place was worse. Her lower lip trembled. Danny braced himself as Grace burst into tears and started talking at the same time. He couldn’t understand her, didn’t expect to as she hiccupped and sobbed. All he could do was ride it out with her, maneuver her onto his lap for a hug. It was only when Grace had her tear-slicked face pressed into his shoulder that Danny realized she wasn’t the only one in the room crying.

He was at a total loss as to what to do for Mr. Iona, who’d rounded the desk and sat perched on the edge of it. He held a tissue to his face, pressed alternately to his eyes and then nose. Danny was bombarded by two choked voices saying words in a mixed up jumble. Bits and pieces came through, like _my sister_ and _they made me_ and _lung cancer_ and _said I’d only be cool if I…_ but most were ragged, high-pitched words too distorted by crying to be of any use to him. 

For several minutes (felt like hours – he kept looking at the door as if rescue would magically come through it), he sat there in a slight, dazed panic while the tears went from torrential to a trickle. Finally, Grace was reduced to trembling against him, face hot and wet against his neck and Mr. Iona looked completely spent. Belatedly, he realized somewhere in there the counselor had reached out, his hand clutched at Danny’s forearm. 

It took a few moments, but then Mr. Iona lifted his head, eyes puffy and nose red, and caught Danny right in the eye. Sudden mortification slid across his face. He let go like Danny was a hot potato.

Danny couldn’t say he wasn’t relieved.

“I have no idea…” Mr. Iona said, his voice thick. “Oh.”

“It’s okay, it sounds like you’re going through a rough time.” Danny remained baffled by the sudden oversharing but was not interested in making this any worse than it had to be. “Really, it’s fine.”

Mr. Iona’s lower lip wibbled. Danny was legitimately terrified he’d start crying again. Not that men couldn’t cry. Danny was a firm believer in letting out emotion rather than bottling it in, he was just not equipped to deal with a perfect stranger sobbing on his shoulder at the moment.

“What’re we looking at with this one?” he asked, bobbing his head at his daughter, who didn’t look like she was going to pull away from him anytime soon. He’d say she was sincerely remorseful.

“She’ll have to stay after hours in counseling for at least a week,” Mr. Iona said, sniffing and also looking for some kind of escape route. “This kind of thing has to be taken seriously.”

“I understand. Do you mind if we hash out the details later? I’d like to get her home. Her mother and I are going to have to have a long talk with her.”

Mr. Iona nodded quickly. He probably wanted Danny out of there as much as he wanted to _be_ out of there. Danny did feel bad for the guy. Based on the snippets he’d heard, he should probably consider taking some leave before the stresses of the job coupled with a dying loved one tipped him over the edge. He placed a hand on Iona’s shoulder and squeezed, then fled like the total coward he was when the crying started again. It was all he could do to get out of the building without running, Grace’s legs wrapped around his torso and her head tucked into him. There was a story to Grace’s sudden and proficient use of hate language and he’d hear it, oh would he. But right now, he wanted to get her home.

Steve sat outside the car, leaning on the hood the way he always did, and looking at something in the distance, to the right. Pretty man, pretty car, pretty pose. It was an amazing picture Danny would and did normally enjoy the hell out of, but today he just gave a quick whistle and watched Steve turn to look at them and straighten immediately. Steve went from bored to worried in a millisecond, starting toward them when he saw the state Grace was in.

“Danny,” he said, so much worry in that one word it was actually painful.

“Just get us to my place, huh? It’s okay,” Danny said as he slid awkwardly into the back seat with his octopus daughter still wrapped all around him. In three months, she’d be too damned big for him to carry like this. “She’s all right. It’ll be fine.”

The rumble of the Camaro’s engine and the thrum of tires against asphalt were the only sounds for a while after that, but Danny caught Steve’s frequent glances in the rearview mirror at him and Grace huddled together. Really, the obvious care in Steve’s eyes was the only good thing Danny could take from this miserable afternoon and he did so gladly.


	2. Chapter 2

H50H50H50

All Danny wanted was a simple cup of coffee and preferably one that didn’t taste like charred shit the way it usually did at HQ. He couldn’t figure out how that happened. Cops should know how to make a decent pot, was all, especially given the premium beans they had to work with here, and he resented always having to brew a fresh one himself if he wanted it to be good at something other than stripping the finish off of his desk. He shuddered. It was so wrong, and he suspected multiple offenders since he hadn’t yet been able to pin it on one person.

After the weekend he’d had, he decided to avoid the aggravation altogether Monday morning and pick up a cup on the way in. Danny never, ever wanted to have an intensive parental intervention like that again, though now he knew he couldn’t bury his head in the sand about his daughter growing up and that other peoples’ kids were nasty beasts of bad influence. He still couldn’t believe Grace hadn’t been suspended for the horrible piece of work she’d left on her latest mathematics test, even though she’d obviously been stuck in some kind of strange, cliquish initiation rite. Bottom line was, coordinating with Rachel to dole out suitable punishment had sucked and not a little because of Rachel’s sudden and often brutal honesty being tossed into the mix.

So in light of all that he didn’t think it was too much to ask, having an expertly brewed and delicious beverage to help him start the week off on a good foot.

“Hi,” Danny said to the barista, who looked like she’d seen better mornings. It made him nervous, for some reason, to think this harried slip of a woman was going to be responsible for making his coffee. It also made him feel some strange kinship with her, for looking like he felt. “You doing all right today, sweetheart?”

Small talk was really ill-advised at a coffee shop, especially this early in the morning. Danny knew this. There came a very pointed and loud throat clearing behind him to really bring home for him that the other customers would appreciate it if he’d order. Poor Meleana the coffee girl deserved more than orders barked at her, though, some actual social interaction. Danny pivoted his head and shoulders to glare at the throat clearer, and when he turned around to tell her what he wanted, Meleana was staring at him with huge watery eyes, about a millisecond away from bursting into tears. _Déjà vu_ , Danny thought, and had a sinking feeling.

When Meleana started telling him how she was today, it was in Pidgin at first, or so Danny thought. He didn’t understand a word, though everyone else seemed to, and then her words devolved right out of Pidgin and into some kind of alien dolphin language Danny was afraid would start shattering coffee mugs if they got any higher in pitch. He might not understand what she was saying specifically, but he figured whatever it was meant Meleana was having a pretty shitty morning, or perhaps life.

“Whoa.” Danny wished he’d just ordered his Americano and have been done with it, because the chances of getting coffee out of Meleana were growing slimmer by the second. “Never mind.”

But Meleana evidently didn’t hear his retraction of concern for her well-being and kept trying to talk through her tears. It was almost as if she couldn’t stop even if she wanted to. She was rubbing her belly and one of the other baristas was at her side, giving Danny the death glare. Like any of this was his fault? It was so terrible to be a polite person? Caring was not creepy.

“At the very least, I wish I knew what she was even saying right now,” Danny muttered under his breath. “And that someone would assume the uptight, undercaffeinated white guy doesn’t know Pidgin, for a change. Is that too much to ask?”

Four other customers started translating Meleana and Danny swore they not only spoke simultaneously, but in harmony. They were a damned barbershop quartet. All they were missing were striped jackets and goofy hats.

“She’s saying she took a pregnancy test this morning,” the quartet chimed in. It was damned fucking eerie how they managed to sync it up like that. “She’s expecting a baby with her best friend’s boyfriend’s brother’s bisexual lover, Peleke. And now every relationship she has is all jam up, _brah_.”

Well, at least they hadn’t rhymed it.

Round about or maybe during that exchange, though, mugs actually did start shattering. It wasn’t Meleana’s high-pitched squealing that did it. It was a lady two customers behind Danny, her face twisted and angry, shouting something about her cousin and also other words Danny was sure made sense to alien dolphins or whatever. With the first skitter of ceramic across the floor, chaos erupted and he had a quaint little coffee brawl on his hands. Even the barbershop quartet was in on it, one of them chucking pound bags of whole beans at anything that moved, two making a move on the pastry counter. The other, bless his heart, looked like he might be trying to restrain the mug-tossing lady. Or throttle her. Whichever, Danny didn’t care.

The handful of customers who’d been seated at tables stared at the melee, several of them whipping out phones. Danny caught a bear claw to the side of his head as one of the barbershops made it to the promised land of pastry and what in the fuck was happening in his life? Oh no. No, no, no. This was being uploaded to YouTube over his dead body. Dodging the flying traditional ceramic and metallic travel mugs both, Danny scrambled on top of the counter, knocked over the tip jar. He whipped his shield off his waistband and held it aloft. After a brief look at the mug-tosser’s wild eyes, he also placed his hand deliberately on his holstered weapon, glad he’d put both on before he’d made it to the office.

“My name is Detective Danny Williams, Five-0,” Danny shouted, and might have had a slight edge of hysteria in his tone. It was being recorded, so he could check later, except that wasn’t going to happen. “I need everybody to calm down, right the fuck now.”

All activity halted. Immediately, and every single person in the place stared at him with wide, dopey eyes. Danny wasn’t quite satisfied, as he scoped out the damage the store had taken in a matter of minutes. He pointed to specific people as he spoke with as much authority as a man with bear claw glaze mucking up his hair and running down the side of his face could.

“You, take Meleana to the break room or whatever and help her get calmed down. You, put the cup down. Don’t break it and do not say _opa_. I mean it, you throw that at me and I will have no problem arresting your ass for assaulting a police officer.” The bisexual lover’s cousin still looked hot under the collar, the grip she had on the sixteen ounce coffee cup white knuckled. Danny’s extra caution with her was necessary. “You three, the Lone Gunmen, cease recording and delete the files. No one deserves this going public, and if we all behave like civilized human beings, it can all be cleared up without officially calling in the riot squad, okay?”

To his absolute relief, every single one of his directives was followed to a T. It was about the only thing that had gone his way since Friday, which was really a very sad thing to think about. As the patrons and employees of the shop began cleaning up the mess, all of them in a bit of a confused daze, like they hadn’t actively participated in the destruction themselves, Danny rued the loss of hope for both a good day and a good cup of coffee. Of course, he’d had no real right to think the weekend crapfest wouldn’t bleed over into Monday, because, _Monday_.

Once everything was mostly put to rights (Meleana was screwed, as far as he could ascertain), Danny did the only thing that seemed reasonable. He went in search of a new place to pick up his Americano, no small talk involved, and then called in sick.

H50H50H50

There weren’t many days Danny was first in the office. Chin was an absurdly early riser and a dedicated officer of the law. Steve was, when they were busy, a complete, impeccably built robot. Only Kono had any tendency to run late, and then it was because she’d misgauged traffic after catching a few early morning waves. Of the four of them, Danny was the only one with a healthy sense of the sleeping to waking hours ratio, though trying to convince any of them of that was like talking to tubs of paint, and not the smart kind that doubled as its own primer. Eight hours a night was healthy. Ten was better. Besides that, sometimes he had fatherly obligations and it wasn’t like the job came with set schedules.

Today was one of those first-in days, and he took advantage of that to clear off a crapload of paperwork. Most of it wasn’t his. Early on in this Five-0 phase of his career, he had developed the enabling habit of cleaning up all of Steve’s reports rather than continue to beat his head against the wall about proper language, etiquette and on the rare occasion usually the result of trying to write reports with minor head traumas, grammar. Okay, well, truthfully, he could have argued those things until the end of time, but for the fact Steve’s half befuddled, half amused face was one of his most gorgeous and it was _that_ Danny could not take. Yes, yes. His attraction and fear were both well documented, precisely like every single one of his own reports and Steve’s by Danny’s hand.

Danny reached for his coffee mug and found it empty. At least he hadn’t had to make a big scene of throwing out the swill someone else made this morning. He stood, stretched his arms out wide and ventured out to get his second cup of the day. He’d poured half a cup when he heard the sound of very cheerful humming echoing through the bullpen. He couldn’t place who it was – wasn’t like anyone on the team was well known for humming – but he knew it was male just from the tone. It got louder, then stopped as the happy hummer’s footsteps pounded into the break room.

 _“Ho, brah. Howzit_ with you this fine morning? I brought _malasadas_ , still hot.”

First cup of coffee already consumed notwithstanding, Danny was a sort that needed to ease into the daily greetings. Anyone who’d known him for more than a day knew this about him, and it was fairly typical of all three of his colleagues to give a wide berth until he initiated conversation. That it was Chin breaking pattern told Danny a lot. Then again, so did the _malasadas_. Chin held the bag in front of his face, and Danny was not one to refuse. He freed up a hand, grabbed one and stuffed it in his mouth in two large bites. God, so good. He ignored Chin’s reaction to his manners (it was early and fresh _malasadas_ were one of the best things about this rock, so what) and swallowed. He brushed at the sugar he knew adorned his lips now.

“Chin,” Danny said with a smile, “I’ve been here for an hour doing paperwork. How do you think I am?”

“I think you’re a pain in the ass _haole_ for show ninety percent of the time, but secretly you’re almost a happy guy,” Chin said, then did kind of a lopsided blink, one eyelid slower than the other. “Uh, or, that didn’t come out right.”

“Sure it did.”

Danny laughed, though, because Chin wasn’t wrong. He didn’t hate it here. He still felt the need to project that image, though thinking about why only made him falter. He topped off his coffee and held the pot up toward Chin. He grabbed a mug and poured at Chin’s nod. What might solve his office coffee woes was one of those single serve pod thingies. He’d have to see about requisitioning one. Would make his life so much easier, especially considering how weird it had been lately. Safe little individual servings.

“Seriously, though, I miss a lot by sticking in my office till I’m fit for company. Are you always this cheerful at the ass crack of dawn?” Danny reached for another doughnut, figured he had to cram them in before Steve aka Judgy McWashboard Abs came in and frowned at him all cute and worried for his heart health. “Because I have to say I could do without the humming of _Somewhere Over the Rainbow_ before nine AM.”

“What can I say, it’s a beautiful day. You should try it sometime. Find something that gets you started off right, I mean.”

Danny quirked his eyebrow at the coffee pot as he reached for the sweetener packets. Coffee. That got him started off right. He swore it was like Chin didn’t know him at all. He had to say, though, that the conversation was enlightening him a bit. Normally, he’d have hightailed it to the safety of his office at the first sound of music. Maybe he could stand to learn something, how to cope with waking up with a raging hard-on and an unrequited lust for his boss every day, because it was exhausting. Physical release was only getting him so far, and that was the easy part. He’d defy anyone to not be a pain in the ass, dealing with that daily.

“So, you are always this cheerful,” Danny said. He took another doughnut and pointed to Chin with it before cramming a huge bite in his mouth. “I knew there was a reason I locked myself in my office every day.”

“Ah, _brah_ ,” Chin said sadly, but the verve and brightness in his face didn’t match the affected tone. “I feel bad for you.”

“If you feel so bad, tell me the special secret to your happiness today. I swear, you’re like a month old puppy, all happy and wiggly. For you, anyway. Spill. What’s got you so bright eyed and bushytailed?” 

Chin stared at his cup of coffee, eyes unfocused. His smile grew wider. 

“Woke up to Malia asking me if she could fellate me within an inch of my life,” Chin said.

Danny choked on his half chewed _malasada_ , granules of sugar hitting the back of his throat in painful bursts, like tiny pieces of shrapnel from an unexpected bomb. He dropped the treat, his third anyway, into the garbage can, but Chin took none of his actions or the look of embarrassment Danny was sure was on his face at the moment, as a cue to stop. 

“How very polite of her,” Danny said wheezily.

“The things that woman can do with her tongue, Danny, I’m telling you. And I know I’m lucky, because she loves it. _Loves_ giving head. I never have to ask.”

There was locker room talk and then there was stuff no one needed to know about their coworkers. Danny was truly very sorry for asking, and it wasn’t that he wasn’t happy for Chin’s stroke of good luck in the blowjob department, it was just more than he ever wanted to know about the guy’s love life.

“Chin,” he said, voice rough from all the inhaled sugar.

“She can go deep, too, _bruddah_. It’s,” Chin took a deep, invigorating breath, “amazing.”

“No more details necessary,” Danny croaked. “Visual already implanted in my brain.”

Chin laughed heartily, clapped him on the shoulder and only with the contact seemed to realize exactly how forthcoming he’d been. The smile faded and he started to look odd. A pinkish tinge colored his cheeks.

“Uh, sorry. That was TMI,” Chin said. “I don’t know why I …”

“No, no. It’s okay. I now know you so much better as a person. You and Malia – you’re great for each other.” Danny scratched at his jaw with a thumb. “And congratulations? That does sound like the best part of waking up, right there.”

Chin turned brighter red, fled the room and Danny firmly resolved to stick with his former plan of attack for mornings: limited people contact until at least ten, if he could help it. He closed his eyes and tried not to envision Malia sucking Chin dry, failed. Damn it, next time he saw them together that was all he was going to be able to think about. No, he amended, this was going to be all he thought about all day today.

Danny poured extra cream in his coffee, it seemed like a cream kind of day, and retreated to his office, where he absolutely did not try to banish the idea of Malia going down on Chin with thoughts of Steve going down on _him_ instead. Except the part where that was exactly what he did.

Fuck, though, that was so much worse.

H50H50H50

“I’m sorry, Danny, I have to take this,” Gabby said, frowning at her phone. “It could be an emergency.”

“No stranger to those,” Danny said a little too loudly, as if he hadn’t been hoping for an emergency call of his own all night. He waved a hand. “Take it.”

Danny downed the whole glass of wine in two big gulps the second Gabby was off of the main restaurant floor, made a face a moment later. He didn’t even like wine, he was a beer and hard liquor kind of guy through and through, but he wasn’t going to waste an opportunity. Hell, if she was gone for more than a few minutes, he might go ahead and order a Scotch. He should have known better than to try to squeeze in a date when he felt so out of sorts. He had no idea what was going on in his life lately. He wouldn’t say his routine was regular. It hadn’t been since he’d been drafted onto the governor’s task force, but this was a different level of weird and he felt one step to the right of normal while everyone else was five to the left. Including Gabby, apparently. 

Conversation so far had been awkward in a way it rarely was between them. Except when he’d been tongue-tied and stammering like a fool the first few times he been near her, they had very scintillating conversation. She was great. Witty and smart and so beautiful and he felt like a complete brainless fool around her most of the time, even though he was no slouch in the intelligence department. That feeling he had didn’t happen only tonight, but tonight it seemed even worse simply for the fact this felt like a first date rather than an established couple sharing a meal. Danny hoped the wine would loosen him up a little. He was too tense, he thought. He wished he could put a finger on why. That would help him in so, so many ways. He raised his hand when the server walked by, but before he could go ahead and order that Scotch (double), Gabby reappeared. He shooed the server, who gave him a disgruntled sniff.

“Everything okay, sweetie?” Danny asked, standing and scooting around the table to pull her chair out. 

“Oh, it’s fine.” Gabby slid into her seat and slipped her cell back into her small bag, all in one graceful motion. “We have that new exhibit to open this weekend, you know the one, and I swear Roger is just so nervous about getting it all in place before Saturday.”

Danny had met Roger on two occasions. The guy had a severe, teenage crush on Gabby, which had bothered him to no end until he realized that was him being pot to Roger’s kettle. He only hoped he wasn’t as obvious as good ol’ Rog was about it.

“That Roger, so high strung.”

God, if only he could stop sounding like he was forcing the words out of his mouth. This was all so stilted and weird and by now they should be laughing and talking about anything besides either of their jobs. Danny toyed with his napkin with his right hand.

“Don’t be jealous, Danny.”

“I’m not. Roger’s a yutz and I know you know that. Bet the dulcet sound of your voice calmed him right down, though, didn’t it?”

“I worked my magic,” Gabby said with a wink. She put her hand on top of Danny’s, rubbed her thumb absently against the back of his hand. “He won’t bother us again tonight.”

Danny relaxed at her touch, the easy tone of her voice. Okay, maybe the fumbling conversation was all in his head, or maybe she was working her magic on him right now. He studied Gabby’s face. She seemed content, until he got to her eyes where he swore he saw something like sadness. He frowned and leaned forward, wondered if the dim lighting in the restaurant was playing tricks on him. He opened his mouth to ask her what was wrong, but at that moment their entrees arrived and the scent of food triggered his appetite and his relief.

He spent a majority of dinner half listening to Gabby, carrying on conversation that got stilted again even before he started only paying partial attention. Mostly, as Danny ate he tried to suss out a few things, primarily why he felt like something was off, like he was Wile E. Coyote and a giant anvil was about to be dropped on his head at every turn. That wasn’t the only thing on the list. There was also his perpetual infatuation with Steve, something he genuinely did try to tone down when he was with Gabby, because, hello, _douchebag_ , except it was so difficult to not think about what a date night with Steve might be like when he was trapped in a semi-upscale restaurant not of his choosing. He was pretty sure it would involve beer and any sporting event that happened to be on television, and honestly, that sounded like a dream.

“Danny?” 

“Hmm?” He blinked and looked at Gabby’s questioning face, assumed she was waiting for an answer. Danny knew he shouldn’t say a word, but, “Uhm, yes?”

“That’s funny, because I was just explaining how the museum had been hit with a curse that brought all the artifacts to life and I had poi pounders cavorting with the stone bowl collection, and the grass skirts doing runway shows with the _Lei Niho Palaoa_. I asked if you knew the number for the Ghostbusters,” Gabby said gently. She set her fork down, the metal clinking against the plate sounding way too loud. “You’re not really here, are you?”

In that moment, that precise second of time, Danny knew that Gabby was not talking about him being mentally absent tonight. She was giving him a chance, the chance he’d needed to make for himself for quite some time but had been too chickenshit or comfortable with how things were to do it. He also knew her sad look before had been real. Fuck him, he needed that Scotch. He loved her. He did, but just not quite enough or in the way she needed.

“Gabby,” Danny said. “I’m sorry, my mind’s been all over the place lately. I’m not feeling like myself tonight.”

Lies. Liar. Lying. 

“I’m not sure that’s it.” Gabby shrugged, but when she reached for her glass of wine her hand shook. Just a little. “This isn’t the first time I’ve noticed your distraction.”

Gabby blinked at him, her eyes large and luminous now in the soft light. She looked so lovely and Danny wanted her. He did, truly. She was just about the most perfect creature in the world and he hated being unable to give her everything she deserved. He wanted to reject her calling him out on his bullshit. He also wanted to admit to it.

“What exactly do you think it is?” is what Danny said instead, and watched as conflict tore across her face.

“I believe,” she said slowly, pained, like she didn’t want to say it but had to anyway, “that you are not in love with me wholly and completely, and that our relationship has already been carbon dated.”

And there was that anvil he’d been looking for. Danny might be a coward, but he wouldn’t extend her the disrespect of denying it now that it was out there. 

“Gabrielle.”

Her face … crumpled. She stared down at her plate, still filled with food, Danny noticed, for several seconds before she looked up. Her eyes were large and watery and sad. Shit, he was a louse. He hated everything about this, and hated himself for allowing it to happen this way.

“Danny, it’s okay. Really. I think I understand. We’re both adults, right?” She managed a smile, but it wasn’t bright and it wasn’t genuine. “Sometimes things don’t work out the way we want them to. I wish I could be your person, I honestly do.”

“I never wanted to hurt you,” Danny said, tight and shit, he was going to bawl in a second and he did not do that. He didn’t know why he hadn’t expected her to be so forthcoming, in light of his own cowardice.

“I know. I think, though, that I’m going to let you off the hook with giving me a ride home. I’ll call a cab.” 

“Don’t be ridiculous, I’m taking you.”

Gabby shook her head fiercely at that. She rose, but Danny couldn’t move. It was like he’d been glued to the chair. She surprised him by taking the few steps to his side of the table, instead of leaving. She wrapped her fingers through his and leaned down, smelling of plumeria. She pressed her lips against his, gentle. 

Danny couldn’t help but pull Gabby closer as she began to withdraw. He breathed in, would miss how she smelled and every last damn thing about her, and she kissed him again, still gentle. He deepened the kiss this time on instinct alone, and at last achieved the level of comfort he’d grown used to with her. It damn near broke his heart when she let out a small moan and parted her lips for him. With his free hand, he threaded his fingers through the soft hair at the base of her head, enjoyed the spark that was still there between them and damn it. He released her. He pressed his cheek against hers, his mouth at her ear. Their hands were still entwined on the tabletop, hers squeezing his tightly.

“Please know it was never because I don’t love you,” Danny said. “Because I do.”

“Can’t you see how that only makes it worse?” Gabby whispered.

There was something hot and wet against Danny’s cheek and neck, tears. His, hers, mingled. Gabby trembled, pulled away without making eye contact, and left him.

H50H50H50

The bust did not go to plan.

The truth of the matter was that plans hardly ever went one hundred percent as they were designed, but the beauty of every member of Five-0 was their utter capability to adapt to new and changing circumstances. Granted, much of that necessary skill was honed so well because of their esteemed leader’s tendency to go off script at the drop of a hat. Danny wasn’t bitter about it, not really. He enjoyed the brain exercises on some level, not that he’d ever say so. He also enjoyed what was typically a breathtaking view of Steve employing his SEAL prowess, which had the effect of knocking whatever brain boost he’d gained back down to his dick, but, well, that wasn’t half bad as long as no one noticed. 

“Whoa, whoa,” Kono’s voice said, terse and sharp. “They’ve got –”

Needless to say, Danny did not have to hear anything else and was not at all surprised when his body automatically knew to dive behind a stack of crates (there was always a stack of crates) to avoid a barrage of bullets coming from suspects they’d been told could not possibly be heavily armed. That was not to say his lack of surprise meant he enjoyed crouching, bad knee twinging just slightly, and that he didn’t intend to do some yelling once this was all over and the idiot bad guys were in custody or dead, he’d take dead, too, at this point. Yelling was what he did to relieve the stress of a near death experience, and since he was partnered with Steve, he did a lot more yelling than he ever used to. Really. He had been positively mild-mannered back in Jersey.

Before Danny had his bearings again after the rolling leap they had all just executed, he and Steve to the left, Chin and Kono to the right, Steve was already up and moving, the impetuous bastard. All Danny could do was curse under his breath and hope to hell his brain could figure out where Steve’s was headed before it was too late for him to be useful backup. He didn’t have time to be distracted by the ink peeking out from Steve’s tight sleeves the way he usually did, so odds on his brain winning were not so terrible as usual.

“Would it kill you to take five seconds to explain the new plan?” Danny muttered, as there came a pause in the heavy staccato of gunfire. “Just once.”

Steve, already breaking cover, froze. Danny hadn’t meant to distract the guy, but it seemed clear Steve had heard him. Danny understood what Steve had intended to do, eyes flicked over to see Kono mirroring Steve’s movements. Box them in, get the perps surrounded on all sides, which was what Five-0 would have done had they expected the morons to come at them with guns blazing. It came to Danny in plenty of time to get on board with the idea, but instead of carrying through his maneuver, Steve looked back at Danny. He stood there, right in the open with an odd expression on his face, a look Danny hadn’t catalogued yet. One, one thousand, two, one thousand. Danny’s gut started throwing off all sorts of bad shit, the realization that five seconds was an eternity in a situation like this. Hell, one second’s pause was too long. 

“Steve, move your ass,” Danny said. “Go, man, go.”

Steve pivoted back to his original path as if on command, but his normally fluid movements were stiff and clumsy. Well, for him they were, and Danny just knew he wasn’t going to be fast enough. The gunfire had slowed after Five-0 took cover, but it roared to life and Danny didn’t think. He didn’t have time. Steve didn’t have time. He threw himself in front of Steve, using his not inconsiderable strength as well as momentum to latch onto his partner’s arms and drag them both out of harm’s way.

It almost worked. Danny felt the bullets strike his vest, multiple rounds, and a sharper pain as one must have caught part of his unprotected flesh. He fell, arms and legs jumbled with Steve’s and Jesus God he could not breathe. He blacked out with the sound of Steve calling his name ringing in his ears, harsh and strong but also terrified. He was out for a second, maybe two, because when he sucked in a relatively useless breath at last, there were still shots being fired. He was face down and alone, smelled dust and sweat as he heaved and struggled to make his lungs cooperate. 

Okay. He was … not okay, precisely, but not dead. He considered that a huge tick in the plus column. Danny attempted to roll over, was prevented from doing so by the sheer agony it produced and a firm hand planted on his shoulder. There was shouting and more shooting and Danny figured the new, new plan of Steve’s was to kill every last one of the bastards. Danny’s head hurt too much to try to point out the ways that was wrong, so he rode out the rest of the firefight in a pained stupor. He took modest comfort in knowing the rest of the team (and SWAT, couldn’t forget SWAT) would handle things fine while he lay there in a heap and tried to keep breathing.

He might have passed out again. He wasn’t sure but thought it was likely, as the next thing Danny knew he was propped up on his right side and Steve’s face was above him. His eyes felt unfocused, but he could see Steve’s forehead was a mass of wrinkles and his eyes had deepened to a color sharply clear and blue-grey, and shit. He knew those eyes, those wrinkles. Hands were all over him, gentle and strong and sure as they brushed against his bruised back. He knew those hands also, and it was actually lucky he was wounded or the jig would be up. So would other more obvious and physical things.

“Hey,” Danny said. He kicked his legs a bit, tested the waters. The barest of movements made pain shoot across his back. “Urgh.”

“Jesus, Danny, don’t move,” Steve said. “EMTs will be here in a minute.”

“Vest caught ‘em. You okay?”

“Me? Am I okay? Not a scratch.” Steve sounded angry about that. “Not one. You’re the one we have to put back together, here.”

“No, I’m good, I’m fine.”

Except Danny realized his head hurt so bad it might be better if it tumbled off and rolled away and his back felt like the whole Jets defensive line had piled on top of him, all elbows and knees. And he certainly didn’t sound fine, even in his own ringing ears. He lifted his head, winced as the throbbing intensified. Through still hazy vision, he finally noticed that Steve had taken off his vest and his T-shirt. Damned tease, only … one of Steve’s big hands cradled his neck and the other pressed against the side of his head. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the T-shirt material wadded up. It confused him.

“You’re not okay, Danno.”

“I’ve been worse.” That was true. The eyes, the worry lines, those things had been all right and welcome in a way when Danny had been legitimately dying from sarin exposure. This was nothing in comparison. “Why are you so worried?”

Steve lost the fretful expression for a stormy one and snapped, “I thought you were dead, Danny. Dead, do you get that?”

Danny stared at Steve, who had recoiled and lifted the hand that had been pressed against his head. The T-shirt had started off dark, a heathered charcoal grey, but it looked strange now. Danny blinked a few times to clear his vision. Oh. The cloth was wet, sodden with blood.

“Oh,” he said. Danny felt instantly remorseful, like it was his fault for getting shot at. Not shot. He wouldn’t still be alive if he’d taken a bullet to the head, right? “Uh.”

“Oh? You came damn close to getting your head blown off, you asshole, and I … ”

Steve trailed off, though, breaths came harsh and uneven, just for a second. He reapplied the pressure and T-shirt, jaw clenching tightly as if to keep more words from spilling out.

Danny tried to piece it all together in his mind but couldn’t really make sense of anything. One thing was clear, though. He knew he should apologize to Steve first and figure out what he’d done wrong later, but then the EMTs arrived and Steve disappeared. Without his partner as an anchor, he drifted. He didn’t lose consciousness again but it wasn’t for lack of trying on his part – they wouldn’t let him. It was really rather aggravating.


	3. Chapter 3

H50H50H50

After particularly harrowing cases, most typically those that resulted in one or more of them coming a bit too close to buying the farm, they’d have a seemingly impromptu, life-affirming party at McGarrett’s house. The parties weren’t thrown the next day, maybe not even within a week of ending the case; so much depended on how badly hurt the injured persons had been. After they’d rescued Steve from Wo Fat, there’d been three consecutive weekend parties – one for Jenna Kaye, one for Steve and one, finally, for everyone and to tie in Chin and Malia’s nuptials.

It had become a tradition, though none of them had ever called it that directly. It wasn’t as frequent an event as it could have been given their high risk jobs, and they did have gatherings outside of work on other occasions – at bars and restaurants, nothing so personal as a backyard barbecue. The unspoken nature of these more intimate parties solidified their importance, as far as Danny was concerned, and it made him appreciate what he had here, with these people. Maybe he still maligned the islands for pomp and circumstance as was his wont as a born and bred New Jerseyan, but his friends here were as close to family as a guy could get without blood ties.

The gash on Danny’s left temple had required nine stitches to close. He didn’t consider that too bad at all. He wasn’t thrilled by it, but kind of felt like he couldn’t complain, just this one time, in light of Steve’s initial anger about it and his own nagging feeling that he’d brought it on himself. And, of course, those nine stitches to his head meant Steve was not dead. That was a huge tick on the plus side.

Danny did spend a good amount of time thanking his lucky stars that it had been a bullet shattering against a crate and the subsequent spray of giant wood splinters that had nicked him, not an actual bullet coming in contact with his skull. He was kind of fond of keeping his head in one piece, at least physically. Mental soundness would also be nice, but he was starting to think he was Sisyphus in that regard.

The headaches lingered from the moderate concussion and his back and ribs still ached a bit, but Danny was on the right side of healing after only a week and a half. He was well enough to enjoy a Longboard or two and just lounge in one spot while others ebbed and flowed around him. The day had been a good one, and he felt lazy with food and companionship. He watched the sun swoop toward the horizon, gaining size and tinting the sky in rich oranges and pinks as it went. 

Max had come and gone, and Chin and Malia were cozied up on a blanket at the far edge of the property. Their seclusion may or may not have been a result of Danny being unable to keep the redness out of his cheeks when Malia drank her first Longboard straight out of the bottle. He was only human, and there was phallic innuendo in the shape of the bottle and the damned name of the brew. Danny had lost track of Steve somewhere along the way, which was rare for him but probably for the best considering how keyed up he felt around the guy.

He watched Kono play with Grace at the shoreline, both of them bathed in the golden hues of sunset and so beautiful. He was glad none of the team had objected to Grace hanging around all day, not that he had expected anything less. They all seemed to adore her. Whatever his girl and Kono were talking about, they seemed serious all of a sudden. Danny shifted, intended on getting up to make sure they were okay, but then Steve burst out of the water with a roar that sent them skittering back in mock fear. 

The situation deteriorated from there, with Grace joining Steve in the water to play Grace Toss for a while. Danny figured her love of the beach and water was an offset for his general dislike, and he tried not to yell when Steve tossed her into the water with slightly too much abandon. The abs distracted him into muteness, the glisten of water on those damned tattoos made his mouth dry.

Kono headed toward Danny with a wave to Steve and Grace, her laughter ringing true and clear across the small beach. She detoured for a beer, and collapsed next to him without a word.

“You’re good with Grace, you know,” Danny said. “Thank you for spending so much time with her today. Don’t think I didn’t notice that.”

“I don’t know how you managed to create such a great _keiki_ , Danny,” Kono said with a sly smile. She got serious though, chewed her lip and looked sidelong at him. “Grace is a pretty amazing girl.”

“Sometimes, yeah.” When she wasn’t succumbing to peer pressure. Actually, he should also be grateful to Rachel, for allowing the house arrest to be broken just this once. “What were you two talking about?”

Kono took a long drink of her beer, stared at the bottle for a moment. She didn’t look like she wanted to share, which Danny took to mean the conversation had been about girl stuff. He nodded, but frantically thought Grace was way too young for that. She had to be, for his own sanity.

“She told me about the mean girl problem she’s got at school,” Kono said. “I was trying to help her figure out how to deal with that kind of thing without painting a target on her back. She told me what they had her do. You have to know she didn’t mean any of the things she wrote.”

Danny straightened. He nodded. Grace’s sweet disposition had been reaffirmed during the marathon weekend of talking about it. That was the only thing that had made it survivable.

“I wasn’t parenting, I swear.” Kono glanced at him nervously. “I’ve just had some experience with bullies, and I figured being a woman myself and not her mom might help her open up a little.”

“You? You, Kono? I can’t imagine a time when you didn’t ooze confidence. What could you possibly have been bullied about?”

To Danny’s utter horror, Kono’s eyes grew wet with tears almost instantly and she crossed her arms across her chest like a self-hug. Or a protective shield. He was an idiot. Of all people, he should know that appearances could be deceiving and that the powerful, amazing woman he knew might not have always been so comfortable in her own skin. He was going to have to learn what it was to be a teenaged girl in order to understand his own. It seemed like such a difference from his experiences, and times had changed so much. He didn’t want to think about any of that tonight. 

“You know what, no. I’m sorry.” Danny leaned toward Kono, planted a kiss at the corner of her eye. He reached a hand out, brushed his thumb against her jaw. “Why don’t you forget I mentioned this at all, okay?”

Kono looked distressed for a second, a hand lifted to touch the spot Danny had kissed, their arms intertwined a bit. Then she kind of phased out. Her face went blank as she stared across the water. She said nothing for a long time, to the point Danny actually got a bit concerned. She jolted when he moved his hand to her shoulder.

“Hey,” Danny said. 

“What?” Kono blinked a few times, then her attention caught at Steve launching Grace into the water again. A fond smile brightened her face before she turned to him and the smile turned more mischievous. “I don’t know how you managed to create such a great _keiki_ , Danny.”

Déjà vu. Danny frowned.

“You already said that and I gotta be honest, it wasn’t even funny the first time.” 

Danny felt uneasy at the way Kono looked at him as if he’d sprouted a third eye. He felt even more discomfited when she laughed and punched him lightly on the shoulder, like he’d just told a joke himself. He pretended that Kono didn’t look like she had zero recall not only of not saying that to him already but of their brief conversation in general. 

He didn’t get a chance to think about it beyond wondering if maybe he’d had more beer than he had been allowed and that he hadn’t waited long enough after the mild muscle relaxant he’d had to take when his back started spasming a few hours ago. His train of thought was pulled off the rails when Rachel wandered into Steve’s backyard with a slight moue of disapproval at finding Grace not anywhere near ready to go home. Danny swore under his breath. It’d been such a nice day he’d lost track of time. Grace saw her mother, though, and splished and splashed right out of the water, clutching Steve’s hand the whole way. If nothing else had come from the detention and grounding experience, an uptick of angelic behavior was not something to take for granted. It wouldn’t last forever.

While Grace doled out hugs to everyone and bid them all a good night, Danny eased himself out of his chair and stretched his aching muscles. He couldn’t hide the big gash in his head, but that didn’t mean he wanted Grace to see him in pain, no matter how minor. She was a smart girl and he never outright lied to her. She knew the risks of his job, but that didn’t mean he wanted to parade it in front of her when those risks came to bear. He walked Rachel and Grace round to the drive, where he got his very own bear hug goodbye. 

He rejoined his team. Chin and Malia had come up off the beach, and they’d pulled a cluster of chairs together to form a loose circle. Kono sat on Chin’s side, Steve on Malia’s and they were talking quietly. Danny eased into the seat beside Steve’s, which was also conveniently located next to the cooler of beer. He was not terribly interested in interrupting the ongoing conversation. He thought about grabbing one last beer, but instead found himself staring at Kono and thinking about the thing earlier. He worried at the inside of his cheek, frowning at the way she’d seemed to lose time. He didn’t know what to make of it, but he knew it meant something. He was just afraid that something wasn’t good. A throat cleared, loudly, pulled him from his reverie. Danny noticed all four of the others looking at him expectantly.

“Hmm?” he said. “What?”

“You okay there, Danny?” Steve asked quietly.

Danny reached for that beer after all, tried not to let the pull of his sore muscles show on his face. They, especially Steve, were still looking at him like he might break. Damned head wounds bled like a stuck pig.

“I’m fine.” He flicked the beer cap at Steve, who merely caught it and looked at him with inscrutable eyes. “Why?”

“I just asked you why Gabby wasn’t around tonight, and you were in a serious thousand yard stare at or through me,” Kono said, just as quietly as Steve had spoken. 

Gabby. Ah, he hadn’t announced his change in status on his proverbial Facebook wall, had he? Danny winced as that night with her replayed in his head at super speed. He could taste Gabby’s farewell kiss, feel her tears on his face. Though he tried to drown it and his reaction with a swallow of beer, neither went away. The worst thing about it was that he felt guiltier for not saying anything to his friends than about Gabby taking her happiness out of his assholery and into her own hands. She’d move on and find someone worthy of her; of that, he was certain.

“Yeah,” Danny said. “Uh.”

“Oh,” Chin said. “Sorry, _brah_ , that’s rough.”

Danny coughed, headache ratcheting up again all of a sudden. He waved a hand and tried to look nonchalant, like it was no big deal, except everyone but Malia had been there when he’d made Gabby a big deal with Grace, which had been all of two minutes ago, really. Even now, he could feel the burn of Steve’s gaze on his back from _that_ night and that phantom memory really wasn’t any better than reliving a kiss goodbye.

“It’s okay. It was mutual,” Danny said, alarmed that he sounded shaky. “Really, it’s fine.”

The awkward moment passed, but seemed to serve as a spark of sorts. It wasn’t long after that that Chin and Malia called it a night. Danny couldn’t resist giving Chin a wink, a lecherous grin and an eyebrow waggle, which Malia caught the tail end of and blushed a very fetching shade of pink. Sometimes it was better to embrace embarrassing stuff than avoid it. Half an hour of listening to Steve and Kono regale each other with sniper how-tos and general one-upmanship about their kickass selves later, Kono also stood and stretched and put on a bit of a show before she announced that she was going. She gave Danny a quick kiss on the cheek and squeezed his hand.

“Night, Danny,” she whispered. 

From where Danny sat, he saw Steve stare at the back of Kono’s head without blinking. He also saw a bare tick of muscle in his jaw that didn’t go away even when Kono treated him with a bro-hug. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say Steve looked upset. He didn’t have the energy to play Name The Face, so he tipped his head back and closed his eyes instead. It occurred to Danny as Steve was walking Kono through the house that he’d just lost his ride options in rapid order, but he was too tired to care all that much about that either. McGarrett would either get him home or put up with him on the couch and it would be fine. 

Even exhausted, the second Danny was alone his thoughts returned to Kono’s brain fart before. The more he thought about it, the more worried he became. He was prone to blowing things out of proportion and this was the first time he’d noticed anything strange with her. He wanted to believe that he was imagining things. Danny stood and moved to the beach, buried his feet in sand at the very edge of it. He stared out at the ocean, ever moving and dark. It relaxed him now, contrary to what he’d have everyone believe. He flipped the conversation he’d had with Kono in his head. Then he flipped about whom he should be concerned as well. 

It hit him, sudden and obvious. 

Kono was fine. She wasn’t showing early signs of a brain tumor. It wasn’t her. But … he’d been lamenting for a while about the weird shit happening to and around him. It was him. Every single last strange thing that had happened to him lately had happened after he’d initiated a conversation. The speed in which it all clicked almost overwhelmed him. The con artist. The girl at the coffee shop. Chin. Gabby. Oh, hell, too many others to even _think_ about. So many people had told him what he’d asked, whether they’d wanted to or not. Danny felt a little sick, and then a lot pissed off. He’d basically been compelling people left and right and he hadn’t even known it. He was so stupid. How could he have forgotten?

_“All things will be made clear, Detective Williams, if you only seek to learn the truth.”_

He’d forgotten, because he thought all that mumbo jumbo was a steaming pile of bullshit.

“Fuck.” Danny was going to hurt that guy. Of all the ways to prove a point, this one was pretty shitty. To the universe in general, he said, “Just fuck me so hard right now, why don’t you?”

Danny remembered where he was only when he heard a choked sound behind him, then was forcibly spun around so fast he got dizzy. After that, it all happened in a blink. First Steve was there gaping at him with huge eyes, and then Steve was on his _knees_ and Danny’s shorts were around his ankles. Last but not least, Steve’s mouth was doing some extremely talented things to perk Danny’s cock right on up. Danny yelped when large, strong hands grabbed at his ass, fingers seeking and fuck, fuck, _fuck_ he had not asked for this. Had he? He couldn’t remember, what with his blood currently exiting stage penis from his brain. God, Steve just felt so damn good. He moaned, hand clutched at Steve’s hair and began instinctively moving his hips. It spurred Steve on, and Danny was pretty sure he was about a heartbeat away from losing muscle strength in his legs.

No. 

No, this could not … Steve didn’t know what he was doing. The thought, the only clear one he could muster, thankfully, cruelly had the effect of a cold bucket of water being tossed over his head. Danny remembered Kono, when he told her he’d changed his mind about bullying and he knew what he had to do. Steve didn’t … Steve wasn’t… And even if Steve was, this wasn’t right.

“Stop,” Danny said, his voice reedy. He tried to extricate himself from Steve’s arms. He closed his eyes tight, gasped when one of Steve’s fingers came awfully close to the mark. Cleared his throat to make his voice be heard. “Steve, how about you stop what you’re doing right now and take your hands off of me?”

Steve didn’t. Not immediately, anyway, but it didn’t take long before he pulled off. His face was shadowed and beautiful, and also blank and horrible as he knelt in front of Danny. Steve kept his hands bracketing Danny’s hips, holding him steady.

Danny hated this, everything about it – that he’d been handed what he wanted on a silver platter too tarnished to eat off of, and that he was going to have to make it so this never happened. Both options were awful and wrong, unfair and downright coercive to Steve, a violation either way. He didn’t feel he had a choice. 

He shifted a step away from Steve, pulled his shorts up, the touch of hands and lips lingering on his skin like a ghost. The thing was, though, in spite of his ogling and lust-filled daydreams about Steve, it wasn’t purely physical to him. He genuinely liked Steve, spirit and mind as well as that damned body of his. It wasn’t bad enough to lust after someone unattainable, but Danny had to go ahead and fall in love with everything about Steve. He was such an idiot for not seeing it; flying halfway across the world into bona fide enemy territory to save Steve’s ass wasn’t something he’d done on a whim. 

And now it was all fucked up. 

“Danny,” Steve said, hoarse. “I don’t know…”

Danny shook his head, held up a finger. He couldn’t stop looking at Steve’s mouth, lips. He was too much of a coward to look Steve in the eye, afraid of what he might see, the horror and confusion he’d read in them.

“I have an idea,” Danny said after a moment. He shifted, turned his head to gaze at the water again. Steve’s mouth had just been on his dick and Danny wanted to cry or punch something, he didn’t know which urge was stronger. “Why don’t you stand up and forget the last few minutes even happened?”

“Danny,” Steve said as he got to his feet. “I’m sorry.”

“Steve, _please_. This isn’t you. I know it isn’t and for fuck’s sake, don’t be sorry. Please forget it, okay?” 

Danny closed his eyes and waited. He couldn’t watch the same thing happen to Steve that he’d unwittingly seen happen to Kono. God, this was so sick. He was sick in the head and heart and gut. A few seconds (forever) later, Steve moved to stand next to him. Danny straightened his shoulders, took a deep breath and looked at his partner. Steve grasped him by the elbow.

“Hey, are you doing all right?” Steve asked, and a quick glance showed his face was earnest and held no trace memories of what he’d just almost done with Danny.

No, Danny was not at all okay and wouldn’t be anytime soon.

“I’m tired,” Danny said with a shrug. “If I don’t get some sleep, I’ll be beyond useless at HQ tomorrow. Would you mind giving me a ride home?”

“No, of course not. Unless you just want to crash here?”

Danny shook his head, and tried not to do it too violently.

Steve gave him small frown for a moment. Then he flashed a trademark half smile, and swept an arm toward the house. They began walking together, picked up a few stray beer bottles, and set the chairs right on the way. Danny figured the least he could do was help tidy up physically after the deplorable mental tidying he’d already done. Oh, shit, _what_ had he done?

“Today was a good day,” Steve said absently as they finally made it to the truck. “You had a fun, right? You’re feeling better and you’re happy, you know, despite Gabby?”

Steve looked uncertain, and it twisted Danny’s gut. 

“Yeah, I’m good,” Danny said, turned his face to the window so the only things he could see were the dashboard lights and his own miserable face in the reflection. “I’m happy.”

Fuck his shitstorm of a fucktastic life.

H50H50H50

Danny punched the door of the shop in frustration, hard enough to skin a few knuckles, rattle the frame and jostle the bell hanging above it on the inside. The asshole wasn’t open on Mondays, which made so little sense to Danny that he hadn’t bothered to look up the schedule first. The plan was shot to hell now, such that it was. His master plan, concocted in the wee hours of the morning when he’d lain unable to sleep, was to find Haalilio and make him fix it all. He had really wanted to take care of this before clocking in for the day, in no small part because the second Five-0 caught a case it would be a week before he had time to breathe and he could not handle this for one more day. Not now that he understood what the hell was going so cockeyed in his life.

He shook his hand, brushed off the pain, scowled at the skinned knuckles and headed back to the car. While he drove to HQ, Danny had to admit he’d had unrealistic expectations of his threadbare plan anyway. A temporary setback was not the biggest or most immediate of his problems.

What needed to be fixed couldn’t be. Even if Haalilio could call back all that had happened to everyone he had come in contact with, Danny wouldn’t want that responsibility. He felt like shit enough for being the cause of so much damage, while being violated himself, he sure as hell wouldn’t do it knowingly. No real harm had come to anyone, but it was a dangerous and slippery slope. For a fraction of a second, a blip he was not proud of, when Steve had had his mouth on Danny’s cock, he hadn’t wanted to do the right thing at all. His penance for that was being stuck with the memory of how good it had felt and that he only knew that much because Steve had been coerced into something he wouldn’t have done normally. 

Danny didn’t know how he was going to live with this, he really didn’t.

No, Danny knew there would be no correcting the past, but he needed to do something. Anything. Getting Haalilio to lift whatever he’d done to Danny to prevent future instances was about the only thing he could think of to gain some modicum of control over the situation. There was no way he was waiting until tomorrow. He could try to censor his speech, or he could track Haalilio down outside of his shop. Danny was not the best at self-censoring. The decision was easy.

Danny made decent time for it being rush hour, pulling up to the Palace only forty-five minutes later than his usual arrival time. He doubted anyone would even notice, given this was his first day back and it would mostly be spent doing paperwork. If they pulled a case, he’d be the one staying behind to do the tech stuff, which sucked because _he_ sucked at that. He was hoping they had no cases, and the most he’d have to do was come up with a reason to leave mid-day to pound his way into Haalilio’s home. 

He parked the car and got out, far less stiff and sore than he’d been even last night. He was surprised to find only Kono in the office when he sauntered in, and automatically reached for his phone to check for messages, though he couldn’t imagine how he’d missed any calls. He didn’t pull out his phone, just let his hand rest on his pocket for a second.

“We catch a case?” he asked, then mentally cringed. 

Damn it, first word out of his mouth was a demand for information. At least it was a reasonable question, but he was going to have an incredibly difficult time not inadvertently making people tell him other stuff. His head started to hurt at the thought. A detective that couldn’t ask questions was useless.

“Nah,” Kono said with a wink and a smile. “Steve decided to treat coffees and _malasadas_ in honor of your return. He roped Chin into going with him when you decided to take your sweet old time showing up. Expect to eat a lot of fried dough today, _brah_.”

“Like a whole store’s worth, huh.” In spite or maybe because of the ridiculousness of the gesture, Danny was touched. Most of the time, Steve acted like _malasadas_ might actively kill him if he came into contact with them. “Steve overdoes everything, but it’s a banner day, him spending money instead of claiming he left his wallet behind.”

“Yup.” Kono’s grin got wider, her cheek dimpled but her expression darkened into a frown. “Danny, your hand.”

Shit. Working with other highly skilled investigative officers was sometimes a disadvantage. Danny was found out now, so no shoving his hand in his pocket and pretending there was nothing going on. He extended his right arm, hand palm down, and examined his knuckles. Slightly swollen, skinned and no significant blood. Not a big deal, as he’d already known.

“I had a thing,” Danny said, thumbing back toward the door like that explained it. “Before I got here.”

“A thing.” Kono’s frown relaxed when she saw for herself it wasn’t bad, that there was no real injury. “Let me see. What did you do?”

“It’s nothing, Kono.”

She grabbed his hand and hauled him close. Danny didn’t put up a fight, simply let her manhandle him to the first aid kit in Steve’s office (logic dictated that as the best spot for it). He also didn’t tell her his minor wounds needed no tending, figured he’d humor her for the moment. In a lot of ways, she was still green and the incident in the warehouse had shaken her more than Chin, but not more than Steve, interestingly. Kono sat him down on the small sofa, then took a seat herself, close enough that her knobby knee knocked into his. It did sting when she applied antiseptic and the hiss was involuntary. 

“Big baby,” she said. “You get shot in the back multiple times and brush it off, but Bactine on a cut makes you squirm?”

Danny didn’t miss the shaky quality her voice took at the end. He was so tenderhearted toward the whole team it was stupid, but it was about time to stop indulging her Florence Nightingale routine and he wanted that look suddenly upon her face gone. He brought his good hand up to pull hers away with a squeeze. 

“That shit stings,” Danny said, exaggerating his usual righteous indignation. 

Kono laughed at him, one of her boisterous near cackles that always made him smile. She pressed her knee against his, bumped their shoulders. Both turned at the slight swoosh of the main door sliding open and the telltale crinkle of paper bags.

“Hey, guys, we got enough _malasa_ …” Steve trailed off when he burst deeper into HQ and spied Danny and Kono in his office. He made a line for them, lingering at the door with an odd expression on his face. He rapped a knuckle against the doorframe, like it wasn’t his office they’d usurped and he needed permission to be there. “Uh, got your coffees out here.”

Steve spun on his heel and Danny, the idiot who liked to dig himself deeper into holes than he was, automatically checked out his ass. It was as fine as ever, but the ogling reminded him of last night, which made him feel uncomfortable and guilty as hell, which reminded him that he needed to look up Haalilio’s home address, and sooner rather than later. He and Kono scrambled to their feet and joined Steve and Chin out in the operations room. The smell of the _malasadas_ had Danny’s stomach growling and the fragrance of coffee reminded him of how little sleep he’d gotten. He grabbed the cup Chin offered him gratefully and took a sip, raised his eyebrows at the perfect Americano. 

Chin raised his eyebrows right back and tipped his head at Steve. 

Danny hoped like hell his neck didn’t actually turn red from the warmth creeping up it. Of course Steve knew what he liked even though Danny had no recollection of ever telling the guy or even ordering in front of him. Steve’s nosiness was endearing all of a sudden, that was how bad Danny had it, and he was a little flummoxed at how he hadn’t quite realized that until Steve was on his kne … no. He could not go there. His stomach churned now, the hunger pangs fading into nausea. He lifted his coffee to his mouth and took another sip, hoped the action covered his twitchiness. He grabbed for the nearest bag of doughnuts, dug into it and shoved half of one into his mouth. 

“Unh,” Danny said, made what he hoped was his usual sounds of appreciation. The pastry tasted like sawdust. “Still warm. So good, thank you.”

“That is disgusting on so many levels,” Steve said. “But you’re welcome. Glad you’re back.”

Steve smiled in the way he had that made both of Danny’s knees want to give out on him, but it held no hint that he remembered he had gone down on Danny after everyone else had left the house last night. Fuck, that was supposed to be a good thing and it wasn’t. It so absolutely wasn’t. Danny figured there was really nothing to do but shove the rest of the _malasada_ in his mouth and smile through the sugar. Steve made another face and it apparently did not matter what he mugged, Danny found it equal parts attractive and condemning.

Danny’s prophecy was self-fulfilling right on target and there was no way at all he was going to last a day. He wasn’t even sure he’d make it an hour. Months he’d gone, living with his stupid attraction. One night and a non-starter later, and he was done. Over. Add in the guilt and he was a swirling mess of confused arousal and it needed to be fixed.

The team had kept Danny apprised while he was out recovering from the worst of the bruises and concussion, so he knew there was nothing left to wrap up on what they’d handled. Danny felt almost itchy with the need to keep his mouth shut and get away from people in general, his friends in particular, until he could talk to Haalilio. He wondered if hanging the guy off the edge of a roof would help and smiled at the thought. The itchy need turned into a someone-watching-him itch. He realized that he’d unknowingly directed his eyes in the general vicinity of Kono’s butt, and while Danny was fairly sure they all knew he hadn’t been focusing he didn’t much care for the narrow-eyed glares coming from Chin and Steve. He also didn’t appreciate the amused smile on Kono’s face.

“That wasn’t,” Danny said, waving his left hand in the air. Sugar granules flew off his fingertips. “I wasn’t, not that it isn’t…”

“Of course you weren’t,” Kono said sweetly, then did a little butt pop with her back arched that was just _wrong_ coming from her. Or anyone, really. “And of course it is.”

“I, uh, paperwork.” Danny mimicked writing, though he couldn’t imagine that there was much of that to do. “Thanks again for the breakfast.”

Danny grabbed one last doughnut with no intention of eating it and retreated to his office. He pretended that he didn’t notice three sets of eyes tracked him the whole way. Great. It took him all of three minutes to find Haalilio’s unlisted home address, but with this being his first day back and the ill-timed zoning episode out there, his office felt more like a fishbowl than usual. He wasn’t going to get out without calling attention to himself. He sighed and looked at the papers on his desk. He sorted through stuff, edited Steve’s reports from last week the best he could without having been there, and then ended up playing Tetris. 

Steve was right. It was addicting and the kind of mindless distraction he needed. Danny lost most of himself in the game, focused on where to put the squares and Ls and zig-zaggy things instead of the mess that his life had become overnight. He couldn’t completely forget about Haalilio and his attention did wander from time to time toward the rest of the team, to see if he could make a break for it. 

“Working hard, I see,” Steve said, out of the blue and at his door.

Danny nearly flew off of his chair, and couldn’t quite contain the squawk of startlement. Okay, maybe he’d been more enthralled with the game than he’d thought. He grabbed at his heart as he spun the chair away from the computer.

“Jesus, don’t do that,” Danny said. “You just took five years off of my life, years I cannot afford what with having to work with you every day.”

“Sorry.” 

Steve didn’t look sorry. Rather, he didn’t look apologetic sorry. To Danny, he looked rough around the edges, eyes shadowed like he had something major on his mind. Danny’s heart didn’t settle down, simply shifted gears from the abrupt jolt of adrenaline to something a lot worse. The sense of dread he’d been building and storing up might be just about ready to spill over the edge. 

“You ready for lunch, or is your workload too heavy right now?” Steve asked with a smile that didn’t appear genuine.

“What, you can play Tetris when you’re bored but I can’t?” Danny waggled his hands between them. “Double standard, McGarrett.”

“Fair point.” Steve’s smile thawed a little. “Speaking of bored, I was serious about lunch.”

“Ah, I brought salad, which I am going to need after all the crap this morning.” Danny shrugged. There was no salad, he just couldn’t handle alone time with Steve today. “Another day, maybe.”

Steve chewed on the corner of his lip, one eye went a little squinty. Danny had to look away, eyes landing on the photo of Grace on his desk. As always, her sweet, smiling face made him feel a little better.

“Okay, here’s the thing.” Steve entered the room and stood at the edge of Danny’s desk. He crossed his arms and did not appear comfortable at all to be there. “I need to discuss something with you, and I’d rather not do it in the office.”

Oh. Shit. Just like that, the zen of Grace’s face got swallowed up by panic. Danny’s eyes flew to Steve’s face, but he couldn’t read the expression there for a change. It was scarily neutral, though he could tell it was taking a bit of work for Steve to keep it that way.

“Steve.” Danny cleared his suddenly tight throat. “What?”

“Come on,” Steve said, tipping his head to the door. “I don’t want to do this here.”

Feeling like a puppy, Danny followed Steve out of his office. He caught Chin and Kono both staring at them. He shot them a pleading look, as if they could tell him what was going on telepathically. Kono shrugged and Chin raised his eyebrows and looked clueless. He supposed that was as close to telepathic as he could get, and that extrasensory shit like that would only work if they knew anything. Danny frowned when Chin’s cluelessness morphed into pity after he’d flitted his eyes to Steve’s stiff shoulders.

A bad feeling formed in the pit of Danny’s stomach and a thousand what ifs ran through his head. Okay, more like one ran through it a thousand times over. What if Steve hadn’t forgotten anything about what happened last night? No, that couldn’t be it. If Steve remembered, Danny would be jobless right now. Right? At the very least, he couldn’t imagine Steve acting as close to normal as he had been. Steve stalked ahead of him, unaware as always that Danny’s legs were, like, half the length of his. Danny trotted to keep up, wondering if Steve had been acting normal at all. He’d been too busy freaking out himself to say for sure.

“This isn’t to say I don’t appreciate the welcome back to duty fanfare and what have you, but it’s not like you to put out twice in one day,” Danny said, puffing slightly from having to jog, as they made it to the Palace steps.

It took him two down and his face practically planted against Steve’s scapula, the befuddled realization that Steve had stopped short hitting him just before what he said clicked in his head. Jesus, there was something genuinely, distressingly _wrong_ with him. Danny would have slapped his forehead, except Steve turned to face him.

“Oh, I put out plenty,” Steve said with a smile, more like his goofy self than he had been for the last few minutes. 

“I don’t want to know.” 

Danny tried to infuse as much of their normal light banter into his words, failed miserably as he once again triggered the memory of Steve on his knees along with the usual jealous thoughts of Catherine Rollins and all things she got to do with Steve. This was a nightmare. He wanted to wake up. He took a few more steps down, thinking they’d head to the car but Steve took off in the opposite direction.

“Hey, Speed Racer, wait up,” Danny muttered, still on the steps. “Where are we going?”

“Burger truck at Alakea and Beretania I heard about. It’s less than a mile away,” Steve said. “We can walk.”

It was Danny’s turn to stop short. Burgers. Steve? The apocalypse didn’t seem nigh, but one greasefest in a day was rare enough of an event. _Malasadas_ and burgers on the same day meant whatever this talk of Steve’s was, he thought he had to butter Danny up first. Even if he didn’t eat it himself, Steve wouldn’t sanction this much crap in one day for anyone, let alone his team members. It was not a good sign. Danny hadn’t been hungry before Steve hauled him away. He felt ill now. He made it to the bottom of the stairs and clutched at the lamppost to keep himself upright.

“Danny?” Steve was at his side in a flash, strong hand on his elbow.

“I’m not hungry,” Danny said. He let go of the lamp and pulled out of Steve’s grip. He did a fair impression of voluntarily sitting on the steps, though it felt like more of a controlled fall. “I don’t … I can’t. Steve, just tell me what this is about.”

Steve swore under his breath. When he sat next to Danny, their shoulders touched. Danny had nowhere to escape from the closeness, and barely kept himself from tensing. For a long while, what felt like it anyway, they sat there without speaking. 

“You know we don’t really have the same fraternization rules as HPD,” Steve said at last, voice rough. 

That was not what Danny expected. 

“What?” Danny asked.

“You broke it off with Gabby, didn’t you? It wasn’t mutual and I’m guessing your feelings for someone else might have been a factor.” 

“I … Steve?”

“I’ve never been that bad at detective work, even if that wasn’t my official job title. I thought maybe, ah, but no, not.” Steve shrugged and sounded distant. “I wanted to let you know I’m down with it, D. It’s okay, just don’t let it affect your work.”

Danny thought he might stroke out, right there. If Steve knew about Danny’s feelings for him but didn’t know they’d almost, that Danny had … no, he really didn’t know what Steve thought he was so sure about. He dared a glance at the man, stunned to see how vulnerable and dejected he looked all the while trying to look fine. Steve didn’t look like he was talking about Danny’s unrequited love. Of course he wasn’t, Danny thought after a blink. Steve didn’t know the despicable thing Danny had done to him, either. Knowing his secret was safe did nothing to aid Danny’s current mental state.

“I mean, if you and Kono can keep it professional,” Steve said, talking faster now, “who am I to judge? I’m going to talk to her as well, I just wanted to do you first.”

Danny felt a little like a drowning man might. He had no idea what was happening, but he wanted out of the water.

“Kono?” Danny’s voice was an octave too high. “You, why, no. That’s … no.”

Danny’s mind raced. He had no clue how Steve had gotten the impression that he and Kono were hooking up. Kono was admittedly gorgeous, but she was like a sister. He shook his head, expecting to hear an empty rattling sound. He sat there like a stunned guppy for a minute, then he started to think about how hilariously misguided this little chat of Steve’s was. He laughed till his head hurt, which wasn’t that long at all. Maybe fifteen seconds.

“Danny?”

“Don’t talk to Kono. She’ll kick you in the throat,” Danny said. He rubbed at his temples. “So hard you’ll need a trach.” 

“You and she, you’re not?” Steve said, and damn it if there wasn’t relief in his tone. “You’re not with her?”

“No. I’m not sure how you came to the conclusion I was, but no, no, sincerely and very adamantly no.”

Danny slid a glance at Steve to see the tail end of something flitting across his partner’s face that wasn’t that horrible vulnerability. Before he could unpack the expression, it changed again to that laser-sharp focus of Steve’s he knew well without having to think about it, set on something in the distance. Five seconds after that, a high-pitched scream came from just outside the gates.

Two seconds after that, Danny forgot all about his inner turmoil in favor of watching the magnificent sight of Steve running like a freaking cheetah after a petty thief stupid enough to try to boost something in front of Five-0 headquarters.


	4. Chapter 4

H50H50H50

“Open up,” Danny said loudly, consciously keeping his voice below a true shout to avoid bothering innocent bystanders. “I need to talk to you.”

There was an old Jeep parked in front of the tiny, weatherworn bungalow. He’d thought it could be a neighbor’s, but Danny had spotted the hippy dippy bumper sticker and pegged it as Haalilio’s. He figured the _kahuna_ and root of Danny’s current problems had to be home and he was hiding. As for himself, he thought it the better part of valor that he hadn’t busted the door down yet and dragged the guy out by his eyelashes. Tenacious was his middle name. If Haalilio was in there, Danny’d keep knocking until the guy broke. If he wasn’t, well, Danny was expending energy to better stave off the urge to pound something other than the doorframe. He didn’t need an aggravated assault charge. 

“Haalilio, open the damn door.”

Okay, so maybe if Danny let in a little bit of reason to his brain, he’d admit that Haalilio was not actually in there. Their encounter nearly a month ago hadn’t lasted long, but the man hadn’t seemed like a coward. He also, Danny had to begrudgingly admit, had not seemed the type to actively torture people. Given Haalilio’s negative reaction to their con artist and professed love _kahuna_ , the chances he’d gone against the way himself seemed slim. Danny had started to believe none of this had been intended. That didn’t make his need for it to be righted any less urgent. Intended or not, it had happened. He’d unknowingly made people say and do things.

The only thing Danny couldn’t blame Haalilio for was his own decision to mentally coerce Steve into forgetting. It wouldn’t have happened without whatever craziness this was, but that decision was his and his alone. 

Danny gave the door one last thump with the butt of his hand, then let his arm fall to his side. He grumbled and sat on the top step of Haalilio’s cement stoop. He was not moving an inch until the guy showed up and he could finally be rid of whatever had been done to him. He might have survived the day, but that was no guarantee he’d survive another. He ran a hand through his hair, then rested his elbows on his knees and let his head hang down. 

Fuck it all, he knew even if Haalilio could lift the weird truth-provoking thing Danny had going on, survival was not tied to that. His guilt would still eat at him slowly. He willed the dull throb of tense muscles at the base of his skull to ease. He carried stress there just like anyone, and the stretch helped. He closed his eyes, tired. Danny wasn’t a stranger to long days, but today had given long a brand new definition.

Thanks to one Mr. Charles Anthony, failed carjacker turned purse-snatcher and recent inductee to the Doofus Hall of Fame, Danny had managed to avoid finishing the awkward mess of a conversation with Steve about Kono. As far as he was concerned, that was a conversation they never had to revisit. Him and Kono, Danny thought, Steve had believed Danny had a thing for Kono of all people. He shook his head, pursed his lips and wondered at the state of his life for the umpteenth time in the last twenty-four hours or so. He should have jumped on Steve when they’d first met, both of them amped on too much danger and emotion. Then Steve would have never come up with the bonkers idea that he wanted to be with any of his coworkers except him.

He’d give credit where it was due. Their stupid petty thief had made the afternoon go by much faster than the morning had, and that had probably been the only reason Danny made it through. There had been witness statements to take and Steve got saddled with paperwork even after he rapidly handed the guy over to HPD. Danny had taken the opportunity to put distance between himself and the rest of Five-0 while everyone was busy enough to not notice he was doing it. Danny also hadn’t had time to think too much about the monkey on his back until the day’s activity started to wind down, and by then the anger had mostly switched over to exhausted desperation. He wanted it over. He wanted to stop having to monitor everything he said and how he said it. It was hard as hell to maintain, especially for a guy like him, but easier around strangers than his own friends.

Danny twisted his head to either side, reached a hand up for a quick massage of his sore shoulders and neck. It wouldn’t give him more than temporary relief, but he’d take what he could get. He figured his tension wouldn’t go away for a while, no matter what happened. He closed his eyes and within seconds felt himself drifting toward a light doze, the sleepless night and long day hitting him hard, fast and inside. The sound of footfalls slapping toward him was the only thing that kept him conscious. Danny straightened. One glimpse of Haalilio was all it took to get his vim back. He scrambled to his feet, so fast the bruises reminded him that they still existed and his head spun. He never had eaten lunch. 

Haalilio stared at him with wide eyes, breaths harsh in the quiet evening. He’d obviously been out for a jog, and was obviously startled to see Danny at his doorstep. He lunged quickly, though, took Danny by the elbow as he swayed.

“Detective Williams,” Haalilio said. “Are you all right? You are welcome, of course, but what are you doing at my home?”

Loaded question, that. Danny took a deep breath and felt better for it and pulled free from Haalilio’s steady hand. 

“You,” Danny said. He poked Haalilio in the chest. “You _did_ something to me and you need to make it stop.”

“Oh.” Haalilio had the decency to look, well, not guilty, but … mildly embarrassed. “That.”

One blink, Haalilio stood in front of Danny, face red and sweaty from his exercise, and the next he was hunched over and clutching his jaw. Not only that, but Danny’s skinned and bruised knuckles hurt more. Danny glanced at his hand, balled into a fist, and sure, right, he might have had a smidgen of aggression left in him.

“I tend toward pacifism myself, but by the look of you I probably deserved that,” Haalilio said thickly. He manipulated his jaw, prodded it with his fingertips. “Come around back, have a seat. Let me get you something to drink and ice for our wounds.”

It was as if all the anger had rushed out of him with that one punch, and Danny felt instead a weird sort of peace. He followed Haalilio wordlessly. He took a seat on the small _lanai_ at the back of the house and chewed at his lip. He scowled when Haalilio came back and handed him a carton of coconut water and an ice pack.

“Tell me what happened.”

“You don’t know?” Danny snapped. He hissed when he wrapped the ice gel across his knuckles. “You put a fucking whammy on me.”

“No.” Haalilio tightened his lips until they were a thin line. He looked honestly distressed as he shook his head. It was difficult to tell if it was Danny’s accusation or the already discoloring bruise on his jaw causing him the discomfort. “It doesn’t work that way. As I told you a month ago, I don’t practice magic. I can help make it so what will be, will be, but I have no actual control over how it comes about. Please tell me so that I can understand, and assist if I can.”

Danny did, edited for content that was no one’s concern but his own and also for his own brand of brevity. He watched Haalilio as he spoke, using his people reading skills once more. He knew as the story progressed that he’d guessed right. He was no less bitter about all of it, but the dismay on the _kahuna’s_ face was proof enough that the guy was telling the truth. He had no idea what Danny had gone through since their last meeting. When he was done, Haalilio stared at him for a good long while. It was a similar unnerving look that had been sent his way during their first meeting. 

“Detective Williams, I would never have done such a thing purposely.”

“I know.” Danny pinched the bridge of his nose. “I can see that. It pisses me off, but I know. I just want you to make it stop.”

Haalilio let out a shaky breath, and it made Danny panic. 

“Please tell me you can fix this. Can you do that, please?”

“The intent was for you to see the truth, what was before your eyes. Sometimes, with people who don’t believe, this sort of thing has no impact. I think for you, the opposite is true. I think your protestations of all things that cannot be proven with your police badge and hard forensic science might be fear based, that you hide your belief behind it because it’s too strong.”

“Let’s can the philosophy talk. I believe inasmuch as people have been spilling their guts to me is as good of proof as blood at a crime scene.”

“I only meant, for the energy I sent to you to manifest this way was abnormal, much more … tangible than it usually would have occurred. Usually, someone comes to me and they will have their answer with the random appearance of an _'Akepa_ at their doorstep or a promotion at work or maybe finding a twenty dollar bill in their boardies pocket. It’s always something simple, easily brushed aside as coincidence but effective nonetheless.”

“Well, it wasn’t simple for me,” Danny said. “It really, really wasn’t.”

“And for that, I am sorry. Still, once that you learned what your _‘uhane_ needed, you should no longer have been affected.” Haalilio shook his head. “You’ve learned the truth about your feelings for your partner?”

“The truth? My feelings.” Danny got to his feet. “I hate to break it to you, pal, but I and my multiple daily erections had already held that truth to be self-evident before you came into the picture. If I already knew and all this happened anyway, how do I stop it?”

Haalilio’s attention didn’t waver.

“You knew the physical but had yet to understand the emotional, yeah? Otherwise, any influence I might have imparted toward you would have been impotent.”

Danny sat again. He closed his eyes and once again there was Steve, just _Steve_ and the terrible thing Danny had done to him. To his utter horror, he felt the telltale prick of tears in his eyes, a sharpness in his nose. 

“Yes,” he whispered. “Yes, all right? I don’t just want to fuck my partner, I want to be with him. All of the time. I want to hang curtains with the guy and I have all these feelings and now I can’t. It’s all ruined now. It’s not like I could have ever, but now I really can’t ever, don’t you get it?”

Haalilio was silent. He remained silent and it slowly sank in that Danny had asked him a question that should have compelled the guy to answer in some way. A yes or a no or a maybe, and it wasn’t the first question he’d asked. He thought Haalilio was right. He was cured. All day, he’d been free of that part of it and he’d tortured himself. Danny’s shoulders sagged.

“What do you mean, you can’t? You know how you feel.” 

“I,” Danny said, cleared his throat. “I don’t know anything about Steve. After I figured out what was going on, knowing what I had been doing to everyone around me, something happened. With Steve. He … he … I. It doesn’t matter, but I made him do something accidentally. You know, ah.”

Danny waved his hand.

“Oh,” Haalilio said. _“Kanapapiki.”_

“That isn’t even the bad part.” Danny knew he should shut up, but he couldn’t seem to. He had to tell someone, and he felt like he was in a confessional booth. There was no one else on Earth he could say this to. “Yeah, I also had found out that if I asked nicely, people might forget what I’d asked of them. So the bad part is that I panicked, and I made Steve forget it happened. He’s straight. He wouldn’t have done what I made him do and I know that, so I willfully used whatever jacked up shit you inadvertently unleashed on me to take memories from him. Tell me how I’m supposed to live with that.”

“I can’t tell you that. But I don’t think that was entirely your fault.”

“Yes. It was,” Danny said. “I’m not shirking from that, but I don’t know what to _do_. I don’t know how I became the kind of person who’d do that.”

Haalilio rose and quickly left the _lanai_. Danny really didn’t know what he’d expected. He’d wanted to throttle the guy, now he was asking for guidance from him. He was beyond tired, and fucked in the head on top of that. He was going to have to live with the albatross he’d hung on his own neck. He knew that. 

“Here,” Haalilio said, back. He held a glass filled with deep amber liquid. “I think you need this.”

Danny barked out a laugh, but took the glass and drank. He finished it in three long gulps, relished the burn of alcohol down his throat, then his belly. 

“Detective. Danny. The only thing I can do at this point is apologize for the torment and beg your forgiveness. You know I’m _kupua a'o_ , and what that means.”

Danny waved his hand and pretended the tears in his eyes were solely a result of the liquor. He looked at Haalilio and couldn’t say if the other man’s expression was odd or if his own vision was too blurred to see.

“This is why I’d also recommend that you be honest with Commander McGarrett.”

“Right,” Danny said. “What am I supposed to say? Hey, Steve, I was cursed or whatever. I accidentally asked you to fuck me and when you set about doing your best to comply, I panicked and then I compelled you to forget that you had my dick down your throat like a champ. Excellent technique for a straight guy, by the way. Also, I am perhaps a little bit in love with you, and maybe please forgive me.”

“Well, I don’t know if that’s the way I’d say it,” Haalilio said. “But do you think your guilt will abate if you live with this burden alone?”

Fuck. No. He didn’t know what would, and he supposed the guilt meant he wasn’t actually as despicable as he thought. But he was tired. He was tired of Haalilio’s calm demeanor and non-answers. He should have just smacked the guy and left.

“You know what?” Danny stood. His muscles fairly thrummed with tension. “I don’t know why I thought you could help even a little. I came here to punch your lights out, actually. Just do me a favor. Don’t project your influence of the universe on someone without express permission again, or we’re going to have issues, you and I.”

Danny didn’t wait around for a response. He was well beyond his mental and physical limits for the day. All he wanted now was to go home and fool himself into thinking he might sleep at some point, out of sheer biological imperative. He rounded the corner of Haalilio’s house … and ran into Steve, who was leaned against the building heavily, hunched with hands on his knees. A second’s notice was all it took to see Steve was upset, harsh breathing like he’d run a marathon kind of upset.

“Steve?” Danny said, his footsteps fumbling. “What are you doing here?”

“I followed you.”

“You followed me.”

Steve gave Danny another look he couldn’t discern, and that terrified him. 

“You were acting weird all day. Actually you’ve been off for weeks now, so I … I followed you and waited to see what was going on.”

Oh, _Jesus_. Danny then also made use of the wall to stay upright. Some detective he was, tailed and reconnoitered and he didn’t even notice. 

“How long have you been here?” Danny’s voice was high and tight, wrong. He could barely get the words out. “How much did you hear?” 

“All of it,” Steve said thinly. “I heard everything.”

Danny closed his eyes, leaned his head back and tried to not let the panic win. He didn’t know how long he stayed that way, just that he could have stayed that way forever and it wouldn’t ever be long enough. When he opened his eyes and turned to face his partner, Steve was already at the street, fleetly fleeing, flying. Danny slid down the wall, ignored the pull against his back. He had to stop thinking his life couldn’t possibly get more fucked. His theory of expecting the worst case scenario was heavily flawed, he was realizing, just one more thing that had gone all topsy-turvy since he’d joined Five-0, met Steve. 

Danny wrapped his arms around himself and tucked his face into his knees.

H50H50H50

Danny’s tongue felt swollen and dry, stuck to the roof of his mouth. The inability to breathe properly woke him up initially, and then the pounding in his head added to his involuntarily wakefulness. He didn’t remember making a conscious decision to drink twice his weight in alcohol, but he had clearly done so. This wasn’t the worst hangover he’d ever had, but it tiptoed awfully close to the morning after of that one house party in 1996. There was a memory filled with all sorts of things he had no desire to revisit.

He raised his head, fumbled for his phone to check the time and gave up when he realized his arm was too damn heavy. It was still dark, anyway. He contemplated aspirin and water and maybe a few crackers, but all he got for _that_ was a rolling gut to go with his cottonmouth and massive headache. Instead of employing hangover prophylaxis, he rolled over and buried his face in the pillow to let oblivion suck him under again.

When Danny resurfaced, his head still hurt and his tongue still felt thick, but the nausea had abated. The sun was up, but only just so, as far as a resentful half-squint for the early morning brightness could determine. He didn’t want it to be today, or yesterday, or the day before. Frankly, he would erase the last month if he could. The whys of how he’d ended up in this condition were still present and accounted for; he was stuck with them. 

Stopping to purchase an entire liquor store on his way home and drinking himself under the table. Seeing Steve’s face with that expression, so distraught. That was hands down the most horrendous part of what had been happening in his life lately, and precisely what he’d wanted to avoid forever. He sure as hell hadn’t wanted Steve to hear what had been done to him the way he had, if it had to be heard at all. Deep down, Danny knew Haalilio was right, he eventually would have had to come clean with Steve if he wanted to retain his sanity. Less deep down, he suspected that asshole had known Steve was there last night, listening as Danny bared it all without censor.

Danny rolled to his side, suppressed a groan that would sound pathetic even to his own ears. The room spun a little. He felt like he was falling down a deep, dark hole, waiting to splat at the bottom. Because having the person he loved run away from him in horror wasn’t hitting bottom, apparently. 

Eyes still mostly closed, Danny slipped his legs off the side of the bed and shakily sat, stood and shuffled to the bathroom. He fumbled around for the toothpaste and toothbrush, scrubbed away the feeling of dead animal in his mouth. He cupped his hands and drank about a gallon of water with an aspirin chaser, stomach sloshing uncomfortably as he turned on the shower. He clumsily stripped out of his boxers, took care of business before he hopped into the tub. The hot water felt good on his hungover muscles, and he just leaned against the wall and let it beat against his skin.

No matter how hard he tried to drown last night out of existence, Danny hadn’t had enough to drink to cause a complete blackout. He supposed that was a good thing, maybe, in the sense he wasn’t well on his way to alcoholism. But what he wouldn’t do to forget. He had a random foolish thought of going back to Haalilio. Danny could get Haalilio to work his non-magic again just long enough for him to compel himself to overlook being responsible for that face of Steve’s. He wanted to make it so it hadn’t happened, so, so much. Of course, he’d also have to make Steve forget again and, oh, while he was at the whole unethical mind wiping, he might as well make everyone forget everything. 

That burgeoning panic Danny had felt for the last couple of days was nothing compared to the sheer dread he felt now. He hadn’t known what to do about his hidden guilt and the intensity of his feelings for Steve, but now he thought there was only one thing he _could_ do. Based on the way Steve had run like a bat out of hell, hadn’t answered his phone all night, it was easy to conclude he didn’t want anything to do with Danny. The nausea was back. He didn’t want to quit Five-0, but he couldn’t stay. He didn’t know how he could, anyway. 

Haalilio had wanted to help, yet had all but destroyed Danny’s life. All the truth had gotten him was heartache, and if Danny believed in anything about the mumbo jumbo now, it was that it created misery.

The water was too hot all of a sudden, the steam suffocating. His stomach roiled, and though he hadn’t actually cleaned up, he turned the water off and drew the curtain back. Danny gulped in deep breaths until his stomach settled. He crept out of the shower, gave himself a rough dry and wrapped the towel around his waist. He walked over to the sink, got a good look at his reflection and was unsurprised to see he looked like ass. The temptation to call in sick again was there and strong, but no, he could not avoid this. He had to stop being a coward, face it and move on with his sad life.

If he were lucky (hah), no one would be there to witness him tendering his resignation and skulking out of HQ. The thought of not seeing Chin or Kono nearly every day made his eyes hot, the idea of never seeing Steve again a dull razorblade to his tender insides. It was his own doing, but it didn’t make it hurt any less. Danny decided he wasn’t going to shave. He wasn’t going to dress like this was any ordinary day. He needed coffee so much he swore he could smell it brewing already. He wandered out of the bathroom toward the small kitchen, all of his limbs feeling as heavy as his heart. He tried to tell himself it was the hangover. 

This was all so fucking avoidable. If he and Steve had never set foot in Haalilio’s shop. If he had been able to read Steve better. If he hadn’t spent so much time thinking with his dick. If he had owned up to his feelings sooner. If he’d just jumped Steve the day he’d met him and never gotten involved on a friend level. If, if, if.

“If wishes were horses,” Danny muttered. 

“Then beggars would ride.”

Danny was sure he leaped about four feet in the air and two feet backwards at the unexpected voice. Hyperbole aside, he collided against the kitchen doorframe with an elbow and his head and ouch, oh shit, that hurt. His heart pounded with the burst of adrenaline, but he still felt too sluggish to remember if he’d put his service weapon in its usual place, or if that place was close enough for him to get to in time. He looked about wildly, sagging momentarily when he saw who the intruder was, and then he straightened and pushed himself away from the door. Honestly, he didn’t know what to think of the man sitting there, slumped but somehow still looking ready for an attack of ninja assassins. 

“Holy fuck, what,” Danny said, voice high in pitch despite still feeling like he’d had his tongue injected with Botox. He blinked at Steve, and clutched at the towel wrapped precariously around his waist. “You keep doing that. Are you trying to kill me?”

Not the way he wanted to start this conversation, but the snark was automatic, couldn’t be turned off even in the face of this mess. He clung to the idea that that had to mean something. Danny could see on Steve’s face there was definitely conversation to be had. He was just, god help him, instantly and pitifully grateful for the chance at seeing Steve even as he was conflicted and in avoidance mode. Unless. Unless Steve had only come to spare him the humiliation of packing up his office. He leaned against the doorframe, stared at his partner. 

“That’s funny. I’d put that the other way around,” Steve said gruffly. “I think we need to talk, Danny.”

Déjà vu, only this time that sinking feeling in Danny’s gut was because he already knew what was coming. 

“Steve.”

“I really think you should put some clothes on.” Steve had his eyes locked on Danny’s left shoulder, or the doorframe behind it. He swallowed a few times. “Please.”

Oh. Right. Of course, Steve would have to be uncomfortable with him standing there mostly naked. Danny grabbed the towel tighter and nodded. He backed out of the kitchen, ran his other hand along the wall to keep himself upright as he made his way to the bedroom. He grabbed whatever – the clothes he had worn yesterday, rumpled and dirty – and put them on quickly. Didn’t matter, he doubted he was leaving the house today. He ran his hands through his hair, trying to make it look presentable. He also grabbed his shield and service weapon. He looked toward the kitchen, but instead sat on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, head hanging down so far the hair he’d slicked flopped loose. Didn’t matter. Nothing did. He took several deep breaths and, after a minute, went back to the kitchen.

Steve sat at the table, drinking a cup of the coffee Danny hadn’t only imagined smelling and watching the door with blankness on his face that was painful. There was another cup poured, for him, and a chair pulled out and ready. Danny fought the urge to let cowardice win, run for the door, do anything to keep this from happening. But, no, he couldn’t. No going back at this point.

“God, Danny, you look like shit,” Steve said quietly.

“Not sure how I’m supposed to look,” Danny said with a shrug. 

He didn’t. He hadn’t had time to come up with some mask to hide how unsteady he was. Danny went deeper into the room, approached the table. He placed his badge and gun on the surface of it and slid it an inch toward Steve. He refused to look at his part … former partner, afraid he really would blow it, again. He turned to let Steve take the symbols of his termination of employment, startled when a hand wrapped around his left wrist. He looked down at it, dumbly noted how Steve’s hand looked so big.

“What is this?”

“I’m sorry.” Danny turned his head slightly, but steadfastly didn’t look at Steve. “I didn’t mean … I’m just sorry, okay?”

“I don’t want your badge. How could you think that?” Steve said, tugging Danny around. 

“How can I not?” Danny blurted.

“Danny.”

Danny thumped into the table with his hip, skittered a bit until the back of his legs hit the pulled out chair. He collapsed onto it, elbow jarring against the tabletop. He broke Steve’s grip and looked at him full in the face. He winced. Seeing that look again, the one he refused to assign a name, made him need this over with now.

“Steve, I get it. I’m not sure I’d want to work with me either, knowing what you know. What I did. Beyond that, I can’t. I cannot come to work and see your face like that every day. I am so damned sorry, for all of it, but I can’t.”

“The look on my face.” Steve stood, paced. “The _look_ on my _face_?”

“I didn’t mean for any of this to happen,” Danny said, panic making his thick tongue quick. “I didn’t want to use or hurt you. But I did, and you can’t possibly want me on the team anymore.”

“Stop,” Steve said. He stopped pacing, stood in front of Danny, muscles tense. “You need to stop talking for just a minute.”

“You heard everything. You know what happened. You ran. You didn’t answer your phone.” Danny ticked each thing on a finger, and stared at his hand. He couldn’t risk looking at Steve looming over him with that face. “I think that all speaks for itself.” 

He was not surprised when the words had started to sound strangled. He’d been on the verge of vomiting since he’d woken the first time. Maybe it wasn’t going to happen literally, but that didn’t mean the words weren’t puking out of him. The aspirin hadn’t done more than take the edge off of his headache.

“Shit,” Steve said. He sat down heavily on the edge of his seat. He fidgeted. “Danny, please. Please stop, okay? You need to give me a second here. For once, you have to let me get a word in edgewise.”

Danny took a shaky breath. Okay, yeah. He needed to do that, except he felt like he was about ready to jump out of his skin with the way Steve was looking at him. He needed a second himself, actually, when he realized Steve looked like four shades of hell as well. Exhausted to the point his eyes appeared hollow and totally, completely beautiful. Shit, how Danny wanted this fixed; that desperation inside him would not subside. 

“I can do that,” he said, and had to bite his tongue to keep from babbling again.

“First, let me say I’m sorry I ra…” was as far as Steve got. 

Steve’s phone rang and both of them jumped. Danny chewed on the corner of his lip while Steve answered, his partner changing from looking broken to all business and he knew before Steve ended the call there was a case. He watched the tick of Steve’s jaw, his frustration apparent. Danny felt a pang, instant curiosity for the case, and regret. 

“You feeling okay enough to work?”

Danny didn’t answer. He wanted to say no, no, absolutely not. He was hungover and heartbroken and everything good in his life except his daughter (and even her, lately) was in the toilet. And he’d just quit. The need to do something ran through him strongly, and he knew if he stayed here he’d wallow. Part of him wanted to be that miserable bastard for a little while, but the cop part of him overruled. He could put aside his own troubles and focus on someone else’s. He’d been doing it for a while now and it might actually help him survive. He’d just try to stick with Chin and Kono; Steve would get that. He nodded, and watched Steve’s face relax ever so slightly from haunted to relieved. Danny felt a bare scaffold of hope trying to rebuild amid the internal wreckage. 

“You should drink that coffee, shower again and put something decent on. Chin’s sending the address to our phones. Get there as soon as you can, I’ll cover until then.” Steve stood, pushed the badge and gun at Danny. “I don’t accept your resignation, not now and not ever. Get that through your head.”

Steve headed for the door, and Danny sat for a moment. He reached for the coffee, took a sip and discovered it was brewed perfectly. He almost had to laugh. He could cross Steve off the list of people who managed to turn a good bean bad. 

“Oh, and Danny?” 

Steve’s head and shoulders popped back around the kitchen door, and Danny choked on half a swallow of coffee.

“Don’t worry,” Steve said with a small smile. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

H50H50H50

As he stood there, Danny remembered Steve telling him just a few days ago that everything would be all right.

Everything was the complete opposite of all right and Danny was going to lose it in a damned minute if someone didn’t come give him some news. He ignored the nervous glances of the other handful of people in the ER waiting area as he started pacing by them. There’d been a lot of blood. His ears rang, mouth sharp with the tang of adrenaline. He ran a hand through his hair, grimy from the explosion and sweat and fear, fingers tracing the still-raised scar he sported. Danny sank into a chair after the charge nurse eyeballed him and then pointedly stared at the massive security guard at the entrance. He started jostling his leg the second his ass hit the seat, needing that outlet for the stress of the day’s events.

It had been an awkward, uncomfortable two days, but thankfully dealing with some heavy hitting arms dealers they suspected had ties to the Yakuza had monopolized the time and left no room for Danny to continue his freak out about personal woes. He felt marginally better that Steve really did seem to have no intention of firing him or letting him quit, even if it meant he was going to have to learn to cope with his feelings and the guilt in an actual, productive way eventually. He figured he’d done well enough with the whole coveting the boss’s body. He had to up his game, that was all. 

But when all three of his team ended up ass over teakettle, and covered in cuts, scrapes and bruises, Danny almost threw in the towel on the game. It wasn’t the worst they’d endured, sure, but for some reason it felt more real and he didn’t even know what he meant by that or why it was making him twitch with worry. He’d been on pins and needles since it happened, though all of them were fine, mobile and had continued on with duty only minutes after the blast. He wondered if this reaction of his was his own personal shit being stirred in some creative ways. 

Spurred by an annoyed glare from the pale, sweaty and obviously ill man in the seat next to him, Danny clambered to his feet again. This was stupid. What good was being on Five-0 if he couldn’t do anything more than sit around like a nervous pile of bones? He strode toward the desk, mind racing with how to convince the people behind it to let him see to his friends already and spinning with how unreasonable he sounded to himself. The wounds were all superficial. Kono was fine, she’d enjoy a new scar. Chin hadn’t even broken his cool exterior to show any pain. Steve was … and there was the rub. There was the reason summed up in one word why Danny was behaving like a fool. There’d just been so much blood. A month ago, when it had been him with the gashes, Steve had looked at him the way he himself felt now. Foolishness was par for the course.

“Is there any way,” Danny said, snapping his fingers to gain someone’s attention and immediately feeling like a jackass for it, “any way at all I can get back there, huh?”

“Well, no, sir,” the woman said, delicate in stature but clearly the Hawai’ian version of Boadicea by the fierce set of her jaw and cross-armed stance. “There’s a reason we have a waiting area.”

“How about an update?”

“Danny?”

He spun around and saw Chin behind him, shirt bloody and white bandage poking out from under the collar. The nicks he’d received on his face were cleaned, the bruise on his right cheekbone that had begun showing on scene now a deeper shade of red but not bad yet. 

“Chin, man. You okay?”

“Fine, _brah_. Frankly, I’m worried about you. You look ready to drop,” Chin said with his ever-present calm. “You weren’t caught in the blast and didn’t tell anyone, were you?” 

Danny slumped his shoulders and ran a hand through his hair again, a newfound nervous habit. As always, Chin’s steadiness had a way of rippling out. If Chin was up and around and ready to be released, then the others couldn’t be far behind. 

“No, no,” Danny said. “It just blows being on this side of things.”

Chin pointed to the scar on Danny’s temple, but said nothing. 

It really had been an abnormal month, for injuries. At least, small consolation, it was spread out a bit. Usually, it was all Steve. Danny smiled to himself at that, bittersweet. All those times Steve had gotten himself banged up, falling down cliffs and getting ambushed and tortured, and it had taken a damn stupid curse (which he still didn’t want to believe in) for Danny to get why it had always bothered him so much. Not only had he been failing to read Steve, he hadn’t even been reading himself. Maybe he should still quit. 

Kono came out next and, sure enough, she had a slight but pleased smile on her face. She’d taken a sharp piece of shrapnel right across the middle of her back. Thankfully shallow, but ugly and long. 

“All patched up, cuz?” she said cheerfully to Chin.

“Twelve stitches.”

“Hah, twenty. Want to see?” She already had a hand on the hem of her shirt.

“Not really. I’m just glad you’re okay.”

Kono raised her hand in a fist, looking for a bump. Danny was reluctant to encourage such insanity, but her good humor was as infectious as Chin’s calm, so when the fist was turned to him he had little choice but to hit it. 

“Do people even do this anymore?” Danny grumbled, his way of expressing his relief.

“I just did,” Kono said. “Where’s Steve?”

“Not out yet.” Danny shot a look he hoped wasn’t transparently worried toward the examination rooms. He had to start working on everything being normal, but then, him being worried wasn’t a stretch. “Head wounds bleed. He probably fainted.”

“SEALs don’t faint, Danny,” Steve called, as he exited one of those rooms and aimed straight for them. “We might pass out, but we never, ever faint.”

“Right, of course.”

Danny basked in the sheer normalcy of the moment, knowing it couldn’t last. He gave them all a close, surreptitious, examination. All three looked pale, but alive and that was really all that counted. His eyes landed upon Steve last, and might have stayed there longer than was necessary. The conflicted emotions had only gotten worse for Danny over the last few days, as he found himself thinking about their aborted conversation and imagining all the ways it might end. He wanted it over with, no matter which of those ways it ultimately ended up being. It was the only way he was going to be able to devise a new normal, get his brain back.

And as much they – he’d include himself in that – needed to get some rest, the paperwork on a case like this, unexpectedly eventful with explosions and the death of some lowlifes, was typically best done as soon as possible. Presuming none of them were hopped up on pain medication. They weren’t or claimed not to be, so they headed back to the HQ to clean off the grime and dust and get the paperwork done. It took all of an hour and a half, which meant to Danny that some of the reports would have to be redone before submission. He didn’t care. He hadn’t been anywhere near the blast point, by some stroke of timing, but he still felt weary.

Steve was at his door, leaning, when Danny gathered the forms from the printer, tapped them into a neat pile and looked up all in the same motion. The unfinished conversation was written all over Steve’s cut and bruised face, marred but not obliterated by the ugly patch of gauze on the right side of his forehead. Danny just nodded and took a deep breath. 

“Should you be driving?” Danny asked mildly as they reached the car and Steve headed for the left side.

“Really. That’s what you’re going with,” Steve said. He raised an eyebrow. “If it’ll make you feel better, you can drive.”

Danny did drive, but he felt no better for it. He’d been trying for that new normal of his, which was apparently out of the question. They didn’t speak, as if through some pre-determined agreement and the tension in the small space got thicker the closer they came to Steve’s house. There was no doubt in Danny’s mind that he would go in when they arrived. He shot more than one look at Steve, attempted to gauge the emotion there, but it wasn’t anything like it had been a couple of days ago. Danny didn’t know how to interpret that, other than to be slightly relieved. He pulled the car up to Steve’s house, shut off the engine and mutely went into the house, one step behind Steve.

He’d be lying if he said his heart hadn’t started to jump at the continued silence, as they walked through the house to the kitchen. Steve grabbed two beers and Danny didn’t feel much like drinking, but he accepted one anyway. Where he’d been weary before, he was now on high alert. It wasn’t until they both sat on the _lanai_ that Steve said anything.

“I’m still sorry I ran the other night,” Steve said, picking up exactly where he’d left off, like he’d pushed pause. “Put yourself in my shoes for a second.”

Danny cringed and set his bottle down at his feet. He waited. Like it or not, he had to hear this.

“It was a lot to take in. I’ve had a few more days now, and what it all boils down to for me is – did you wonder at all why I got on my knees for you so easily?”

Danny sucked in a breath. That was not what he’d been bracing himself for. Steve didn’t sound angry or disgusted or anything but gentle and a tad strange.

“What?” Danny fidgeted. “Huh?”

“I went back, later, had a chat with Haalilio myself. I wanted to understand what he’d done to you.” Steve did look angry about that. He took a drink, scowled at his bottle and set it down as Danny had. He leaned forward, clasped his hands together. “Woke him up at two-thirty, the least he deserved.”

“Steve, he didn’t mean to.” Danny had no idea why he was defending Haalilio now. 

“Kind of like you didn’t mean to?” Steve said softly. He shook his head. “Danny, the thing is, Haalilio said whatever you did to provoke a response out of me, I wouldn’t have reacted if it hadn’t been true.”

Danny blinked a few times. That was, no, he hadn’t considered that at all. It meant, he thought he knew what it meant. His heart was going to explode. He opened his mouth to speak, but had no words. The lexicon he had stored in his brain completely failed him, but he started to feel a particular, all-over itch. 

“You asked.” Steve cleared his throat. “I’ve never been that good with those kinds of words. I showed you the truth.”

“Steve. I,” Danny mumbled, all he could get out. He stared at Steve, but Steve was looking at his hands. “You.”

“And then you made me forget, Danny,” Steve said, finally looking over at Danny and his eyes were bleak.

Danny wanted to erase that expression, but then that was what he’d done to create it. Him. He shook his head. He didn’t know what he could say to make what he’d done more palatable. It was obviously a violation, and learning of it had hurt Steve.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know,” Danny said. He hadn’t known what to do. He hadn’t known Steve … Steve? “All I could think was that I’d made you do something you wouldn’t have done on your own.”

“Not because I didn’t want to.”

It was a good thing he was sitting, really. Danny flopped and closed his eyes, sprawled on the chair with a complete inability to stay upright. He tried to make what Steve was saying make sense in context, slotting puzzle pieces together that had been lined up all along; he’d been too close to see the interconnecting divots and knobs. The two biggest pieces – the burning stare of Steve against Danny’s back that night he’d introduced Gabby to Grace and the hurt, dejected look when Steve had thought he’d dumped Gabby for Kono.

“Steve, I didn’t. I don’t know why I didn’t know, but I’m so damned sorry. For all of it.”

“I know you are. I don’t like that you took that memory away, but I understand why you did it,” Steve said, careful now. “I spent a lot of time thinking about this, and I’m not sure I wouldn’t have done the same thing.”

“I wish I could take it back. Everything.”

“Bygones, Danny. You have to admit the circumstances were a little bent.” Steve picked up his beer, rolled the bottle in his hands but didn’t drink. He set it down again, like he was full of nervous energy. “I mean, I can see where you’d get the misguided impression I only like women.”

“Catherine.”

“It was easier with women. Navy. You know. You have to know. There’s Rachel for you. Gabby.” Steve snorted. “Kono. I can’t point fingers. I had myself convinced you weren’t a possibility. But I heard what you told Haalilio. Do you want to take that part of it back?”

Danny swallowed a couple of times. It was somehow worse, knowing that Steve had been right there all along and that he’d spent the better part of two years convincing himself it wasn’t ever going to happen. He hadn’t pegged himself for such a masochist. 

“No,” Danny said, the word barely formed when Steve moved, and he had six foot some of Navy SEAL practically on top of him.

Steve kissed anything else Danny might have said right out of him. His mouth still open, Danny simply widened and let Steve in. They fumbled at each other, all desperate moves and long waits and slightly clumsy tongues and teeth. Somewhere, he heard a faint clink, and glass rolling on tile, the pungent smell of beer filled the air. Danny shifted, hands circling around Steve’s shoulders and tugging at the shirt. There was nothing soft or romantic about it. Danny was filled with yes and relief and want. He gasped when one of Steve’s hands caressed his aroused cock through his pants, and his hips tilted up. Skin, he needed skin. Danny broke the kiss, his nerve endings felt charged.

“How long?” he asked.

“Since I’ve wanted to get in your pants?” Steve’s breath gusted across his cheek, hot, a little sour. “First day. Since I wanted more? Not sure. Long time.” 

“Mmmph.” 

Danny was sure he’d actually meant to say something, there. Couldn’t remember what. He finally got Steve’s shirt untucked, hands grabbing at skin that was surprisingly soft and smooth over hard muscle. It had the effect of launching Steve into controlled, efficient moves, his hands unzipping and tugging Danny’s pants down. Danny lifted his hips, and slid further down the chair, the night air a slight shock to his dick, but good. 

Steve kissed at his neck, collarbone through his shirt, then looked at him. Jesus, God, those damned eyelashes. Danny’s hands lost their grip on Steve when Steve grasped Danny’s legs, thumbs ghosting a circular pattern on the inside of his thighs and Danny moaned, just a little. Steve kept looking at him as he lowered his mouth over Danny’s cock and it was good. Steve was amazing, applying just the right amount of pressure and suction and fuck, Danny didn’t think he was going to last long, not after everything. Steve’s teeth scraped gently along his length, tongue smooth and softly licked it better. Over and over and Danny felt his orgasm building already.

“Steve,” he said, hands threading through Steve’s short hair, fingertips tracing the gauze on his temple. 

Steve moved his hands to Danny’s hips and held him in place, taking him deeper. One of his hands shifted, lifting Danny, somehow pulling him in closer and Danny didn’t have time to tap or give any kind of warning. He came, so hard he was left breathless. Bright bursts floated in his vision, and the sound of waves crashing filled his ears. He lay spent for a moment, limbs loose and holy shit Steve’s mouth was still on him. Hands still a little numb, he scrabbled at Steve’s shoulders until Steve finally pulled off of him, lips wet and red and kissing him again, quick and dirty.

“Not forgetting that,” Steve murmured against his lips. 

Danny wanted to laugh and cry, and blamed the vestiges of orgasm for that contradiction. He chased the taste of himself on Steve’s tongue, one arm firmly around Steve’s shoulder and the other seeking. They were in an awkward position, and he couldn’t reach. Steve stopped his hand.

“Steve, I want to give you more to not forget,” Danny said, then ducked his head. Jesus, that was cheesy. 

Steve looked at him, eyes sharp and dark. The waves crashing, the real ones from the beach, sounded sensual, the ebb and flow of them, and Steve lifted Danny’s hand, kissed the palm, bare flick of tongue against his wrist. He stood after a moment, grimacing at the change in altitude the only hint of the injuries of the day.

“Upstairs? Stay?” Steve asked.

Danny nodded and got to his shaky legs, a little mortified that his pants were around his calves, only the lower half of his shirt buttons undone. He leaned to tug the pants up, face ended directly in front of Steve’s crotch, the bulge there obvious. He quickly changed plan, yanking his own pants up as he worked the button of Steve’s cargos open, zipper down. He slipped his hand inside the same time he wrapped a hand around the nape of Steve’s neck and brought him down for a kiss. 

Steve was hot in his hand, modest length, pleasant girth. He gave a few strokes, relished the way Steve pushed into the kiss harder at that, the way his hips moved. He smiled as Steve widened his stance to give Danny a better angle, licked at the corner of Steve’s mouth, trailed his tongue across that strong jaw until his nose was buried in hair that smelled of sweat and soap and Steve. He could stay this way, bring Steve to completion with his hands. He wanted that, but he wanted more also.

“Just fuck me so hard right now, why don’t you?” Danny whispered.

This time, Danny was not at all surprised when Steve jerked, grabbed and hauled him into the house to the bedroom, where he did exactly that with skill befitting a SEAL, reverent and full of debauchery at the same time. It was the easiest thing in the world, sudden and new but not at the same time. Danny loved opening up for Steve, accepting him inside, his body tight and ready and they fit together, uncomfortable at times but with the promise of amazing, as they learned each other better. 

And, after, coming down from his second orgasm, he lay there with Steve’s slick limbs intertwined with his own and he was half suffocating from the mass of lean weight on top of him. He wouldn’t be anywhere else, and Danny was very sure neither of them were about to forget this night, or any others for a long, long time to come. 

Not if he had anything to say about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Glossary of Terms**
> 
>  
> 
>  _'Akepa:_ small honeycreeper (forest bird), found only in high elevations  
>  _Auwe:_ oh, oh dear  
>  _Heiau:_ place of worship  
>  _Kahuna 'ana'ana:_ Specialist at praying enemies to death. A sorcerer. A malevolent person who gives his/her power to the dark side.  
>  _Kahuna hana aloha:_ Kahuna of the Order of Lono who specializes in making love potions with herbs, prayers, and even hypnosis.  
>  _Kahuna kupua a'o:_ Kahuna of the Order of Kane or High Priest. Master teacher of enlightenment or the art of self realization.  
>  _Kama ‘aina:_ native born  
>  _Kanapapiki:_ son of a bitch  
>  _Keiki:_ child  
>  _La’a:_ sacred  
>  _Lei Niho Palaoa:_ whale tooth necklace  
>  _Nah, minahs:_ no problem  
>  _Pololei:_ correct, right  
>  _pua’a haole:_ pig outsider  
>  _‘uhane:_ soul


End file.
